The Girl Who Loved Wildrider
by QoS
Summary: When Wildrider is kicked out of the Decepticon base, he decides to find a human to keep him company. But the one he picks has more problems than just a Stunticon terrorist. Not a romance, despite the title.
1. In which Drag Strip races backwards

**Author's note:** This fic will have its darker moments, especially towards the end. That being said, enjoy the ride and brace for impact.

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Chapter 1: In which Drag Strip races backwards**

It was partly Wildrider's fault, and he knew it. No, mostly his fault. After all, it wouldn't have occurred to Drag Strip to try to win a race through the _Nemesis_ while driving backwards if Wildrider hadn't suggested it to him.

And it had been a great race right up till the end. Accelerating furiously to make up for the fact that he wasn't so aerodynamic in reverse, Drag Strip had managed to stay in the lead while Wildrider hung back and thought about letting him win, mostly because that was easier than coping with Drag Strip when he lost. But as they neared the finish line (the door to Corridor C2), Wildrider couldn't resist. He put on a sudden burst of speed, so of course Drag Strip did the same.

The door went down under the yellow racer's momentum and was suddenly a ramp resting on a large shape beneath it. Wildrider couldn't resist that either. He hit the gas pedal, roared up the ramp just behind Drag Strip and soared off it with a happy cry of "Wheeeee!"

That was when he noticed Megatron with his back to the wall of Corridor C2, staring at them as if unable to believe his optics, and that was when it occurred to him to wonder just what – or who – was under the ramp. At cannonpoint, he and Drag Strip picked up the door and helped a dazed Skywarp off the floor. Wildrider would have thought that he of all Decepticons would appreciate the funny side of the situation, but Skywarp seemed to have temporarily lost his sense of humor and Megatron didn't look too amused either.

At any other time Wildrider knew they would have been turned over to Motormaster, who would have hit them both until they couldn't stand unaided, much less race anywhere. Unfortunately the other Stunticons were away on some mission, and Wildrider had a feeling that Megatron wouldn't stop at a simple beating.

Still, the Decepticon commander gave them a chance to account for themselves before he passed judgment, so they followed him to the control room and Wildrider spoke up. "Racing backwards was my idea." Not that self-sacrifice was especially prized among the Stunticons, but he had always thought of Drag Strip as being younger than him somehow, which would have torqued Drag Strip off a complete three-sixty if he had known.

Megatron's optics narrowed. "I don't care whose imbecilic idea it was."

Wildrider's radio picked up an incoming transmission. "I won," Drag Strip said, though he didn't sound too pleased about it.

"You sure did. When Megatron's done with killing us we'll party."

"Since it's apparently necessary to protect this base and everyone else in it from the two of you," Megatron continued, gesturing at Drag Strip, "you are in solitary for three days."

"Ow," Wildrider said over the radio. "Sorry about that." It was the kind of punishment that Breakdown could have tolerated and Dead End would have loved, but Drag Strip didn't like being by himself. _Maybe I can break in and smuggle him something. _

"And you…" The fusion cannon swung to point at Wildrider. "…can get off this ship."

"Huh?"

Megatron grinned. "If you want to tear around and smash up property, make it someone else's. I don't want to see you or hear you until Motormaster gets back and can keep you under some semblance of control."

"But that's three days too," Drag Strip said.

"Now it's four," Megatron said.

"Shut up!" Wildrider said, forgetting to use his radio. "Uh, I was talking to Drag Strip, not you--"

"Five!" Megatron snapped. "And complete radio silence during that time. Do you think I wouldn't know that you two were chattering just now?"

_Thanks to that snitch Soundwave, _Wildrider thought._ Too bad he wasn't under that slagging door. _He glared at the Communications Officer.

"Six!" Megatron rose from his chair. "Now get out before I make it any longer!"

Wildrider got out.


	2. In which Wildrider takes a vacation

**Chapter 2 : In which Wildrider takes a vacation**

The waves slapped the beach lightly and washed, foamy white, over Wildrider's feet. _Tide's coming in_, he thought.

He retreated a few yards. The water washed over the spot on which he had touched down after flying out from the docking tower, and all traces he had left were gone. Wildrider sat down, not much caring if he got sand in his joints. Six days. Six days away from the _Nemesis_, away from everyone he knew, away from his team. It might as well have been six thousand.

_Think of this as a vacation_, he decided. _If I'd gotten six days without patrol, without watch, without any duties, I'd be thrilled. So I'm thrilled now. Really I am. Now, what would I do with my vacation?_

The answer came at once: grab one of the other Stunticons and head out for some fun. And Wildrider knew that this problem wouldn't be all that easy to solve, considering that there weren't any other Stunticons nearby.

Unlike his teammates, he didn't have any special preferences about whom he drove with or hung out with. He liked talking to Dead End because that always made him feel more alive, the same way a lightbulb looked brighter when it was in a pitch-dark room. Working with Breakdown was fun because he could charge head-on at anything that worried or frightened the Lamborghini, and he knew that if they ever got into real trouble, Breakdown could sabotage enemy vehicles or brig cells alike. He was sort of a Get Out Of Jail Free car. And Wildrider enjoyed racing with Drag Strip, who was almost as reckless as he was but who could keep their assignments in mind and make sure they got what they came for.

Slag, at that moment he even felt as though Motormaster would be better company than the empty beach and the waves. Wildrider wouldn't have been worried if all the Seacons had risen from the ocean trying to attack him, but the slow onset of loneliness left him off-balance. How in Primus's name was he going to cope with six days of this?

_I could just go and have fun on my own_, he thought. _Hit a highway or play tag with the cops. _That might provide enough speed and noise and excitement to distract him from the fact that he was alone. But how long could he keep going? He'd need to refuel and recharge, and what if he burst a tire or something in a high-speed chase? He couldn't go back to the Constructicons' repair bay before the six days were up.

_What am I going to do?_ he thought.

_Make a sandcastle,_ he decided.

If Wildrider didn't get an answer to something right away, a crazy idea was sure to pop into his head and he never questioned whether or not to follow those impulses. Following them certainly beat sitting around doing nothing. So he scooped up a mound of damp sand and started patting it into shape, though instead of a castle he made the _Nemesis_ instead. That distracted him for a while, but when he was done he realized the sun had nearly set.

Worse, he had become accustomed to the sound of the ocean, so it was now a white-noise hum in the background, little better than silence. Wildrider shivered, washed his hands and looked unhappily at his little sandship.

_No, wait_, he thought. _That's what I need right now - a shelter of some kind. Just a place to stay for the night. _

He transformed, hit the first sound file in his databanks, and headed inland for a few minutes. Guns N Roses belted out "Sympathy for the Devil" as he drove parallel to the beach; somehow he didn't want to be too far from his real home until he figured out what to do next. The last fiery light of the sunset turned his paintjob to charcoal, made his tinted windows glow with a deep smoldering redness of their own – and fell on a small building in the distance.

Wildrider accelerated towards it, tires crunching sand and the spars of a picket fence that was in his way. He braked just before the house's porch and looked more closely at the place. No lights in the windows or sounds from inside. Perhaps the humans who owned it were on vacation too.

Still, there was a garage that looked as though it would be large enough for him, so he blasted the door open, reversed and drove inside. He turned off his engine. He would have given anything to be back in his quarters, but he supposed the garage was better than nothing.

Music thundered off the walls of the small space, but after a few more moments Wildrider switched the sound off in a shaky, do-it-fast-and-don't-look-back way. He had to concentrate, which never came easy to him, and he had a feeling that most Decepticons accomplished that particular activity in unnerving quietness.

_Go back to the Nemesis and plead with Megatron to just kill me?_ Doable, but whoever was on duty in the control room might have orders not to raise the docking tower for him.

_Find Motormaster and the others?_ He'd get into trouble, sure, but he'd get into trouble anyway when Motormaster found out about the backwards race and the door incident, and being beaten up wasn't as bad as being alone. But Motormaster might simply send him away in case he messed up their mission as well.

_Slag it, this isn't working!_ Wildrider growled in frustration and contemplated ramming his head into the wall until he went offline. Perhaps that would last for six days and at the end of that time he would wake up and--

A movement to one side caught his attention. Cautiously, paws soundless on cement floor, a cat slipped in from an open door and stopped, watching him.

"Hey," Wildrider said, relieved to finally have some company.

The cat's ears flicked forward at the sound, tail twitching. Then it circled him a little warily before crouching back, muscles bunching beneath its stripey orange fur. In one fluid motion, it leaped on to his hood and curled up there.

Wildrider felt disappointed. He didn't mind little dusty pawprints on his plating, but it looked like the cat was just going to recharge on him, rather than distracting him from his solitude.

_No, wait, that's it! That's what I'm going to do. I'll find someone to stay with me for the next six days, and problem solved. Haha, I might be crazy but I'm not stupid. Now, who's going to be my new friend?_

He considered that while the cat rubbed itself against warm metal and made a soft engine-like rumbly sound. Not an Autobot, he decided. It would certainly be fun, trying to keep an Autobot under control, but he didn't think even he was up for a six-day fight.

What about another 'con, then? No, that wouldn't work. All the other Decepticons had their own duties, which they wouldn't thank him for disrupting, and the only ones small enough to fit in his passenger compartment were Soundwave's cassettes, none of whom Wildrider particularly liked. _Okay, 'cons out_.

That left humans. They were the right size to ride in him and couldn't really damage him even if they struggled. Plus, there were so many of them, so even if they splatted all over his dashboard, he could get replacements. Wildrider cheered up._ I'll recharge now and first thing tomorrow I'll head out and get me a human_.

Santa Esmeralda's "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" echoed off the garage's walls, and the cat fled for cover as Wildrider settled down to recharge.

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**tomorrow4eva** : Glad you enjoyed the chapter! :) Yes, we've probably got quite different plots. I'd love to read yours when it's up, though – it's surprising how much mileage (pun intended) we can get out of a character who had, what, six lines in the entire series?

Still, at least Wildrider always had good action scenes. I love the moment in "The Burden Hardest to Bear" where he shoves Rodimus Prime off a cliff and proclaims, "He done blowed up _real_ good!"

**lacitar13** : Wildrider does the totally unexpected and has fun doing it. Can't help liking someone like that! Gotta agree that Swoop is a sweetheart, though.

**Taipan Kiryu** : Thank you for the review and the compliments! I don't know if I'll be your favorite anything when you get to the end of this story, though, because I'm trying for "hurt the reader _real_ good" here. But it'll hopefully be an entertaining read anyway.

And speaking of little details… this is really making me curious, so I have to ask. Do you know what those cute spikes on Wildrider's head are for? Just ornamentation?

**Tugera** : I'm flattered. :) Hope the story won't disappoint. And Wildrider got into trouble for the dirty look he gave Soundwave – not that Soundwave cares, but Megatron had just about had it at that point.

**sheebang** : Thanks for commenting, and I'd like to respond to your request that I come up with an original idea. This might be a little long, but that's because I love analyzing fiction and writing (check out my blog for more examples).

The core idea of "Decepticon gets together with human, hijinks ensue" is a popular one in the fandom. Examples of this are Fire Redhead's "A Pet Squishy", dixiegurl13's "The Enemy of My Enemy is My Enemy", Taipan Kiryu's "Something to Remember" and Dragoness Eclectic's "Stunticon Rally", though that's more of a Decepticon-meets-vampire fic.

These and many more stories (present WIP included) are built on the same idea. If you know the person you referred to in your review, the "original writer who came up with this in the first place", please let me know and I'll credit them accordingly. However, using the same core idea doesn't make these stories unoriginal.

Different writers take the same concept and make different stories of it. With the "Decepticon meets human" idea, you can use different Decepticons, because (for instance) Starscream won't react the same way in a situation as Scavenger will. You can come up with unique humans. You can put them both in vastly varied situations and give them different goals. Your style is also going to be different from that of other writers. All this contributes to what the Vulcans call "infinite diversity in infinite combinations".

I wouldn't advise writers to try to come up with _totally_ original ideas because (as Taipan Kiryu pointed out) there are so few of these. And even if you do manage to think of something unique, chances are someone else has thought of it first. But since that person wasn't you, you can still develop your own distinctive story out of the idea.

Coming up with your own idea is good. But being able to put your own spin on a basic idea is also good. Being able to revitalize an idea that's been used before is also good. And in the end, the characterization, plot and style are just as important as the idea, if not more so – there's not much point in having a really original idea and not having enough skill to develop it into the best possible story. An idea is a seed, a starting point – it's not the be-all and end-all of a fic.

One final example for the road. The working concept of my next story is, "The Stunticons have finally had enough of Motormaster, and he 'disappears' under suspicious circumstances. But things only get worse for them – they're not sure whether he's really dead or coming back for revenge against them, and their new leader has to hold together a team that's rapidly falling apart."

Is this an original story? Maybe. I'm pretty sure I haven't read anything like it.

Is this an original idea? No. Back when William Shakespeare used it, the end result was called _Macbeth_.


	3. In which Wildrider hits the news

**Chapter 3 : In which Wildrider hits the news**

The human paused on the sidewalk so that the yappy little animal on the end of a leash could sniff at the grass. Wildrider watched him and wondered what was _with_ humans and small furry animals. If he took the one, would he have to take the other as well? What if the animal made a mess of his passenger compartment? He wasn't nearly as prissy as Dead End, but he wasn't a complete slob either.

Engine idling, he evaluated the human, though he knew he wasn't doing as good a job of it as Breakdown would have done. _Male, funny-looking, fluffy white hair. Wait, that's not good._ He'd heard somewhere that humans grew steadily lighter on top as they got older, and if they were too old they became feeble as well, just a step away from the smelter. Sure, there were plenty of replacement humans, but it would be dumb to start out with one who might spontaneously deactivate at any moment.

The grey Ferrari pulled away from the kerb and accelerated with a muffled roar that made both human and animal leap back. Wildrider giggled, pleased to be proven correct - the right human for him would be one who _didn't_ freak out simply because he hit the gas. He sped up, knocked over a stop sign and raced down another street.

After a few hours, though, he was nowhere closer to finding someone. Most humans seemed to hear him coming and ran to get out of the way or hide. He thought of grabbing them anyway, but somehow he would have liked a human who stayed with him because he was really fun to be with, rather than because the human had no other choice.

_But if the humans keep running away, they'll never know that I'm fun to hang out with, so should I catch one and keep it until it starts to like me? How long will that take?_ He cornered one of them, a female clutching a smaller specimen, but she started screeching at a pitch that hurt his audials. Wildrider was pretty sure he could do hysterical screaming all by himself - he didn't need any help from humans in that quarter.

A police car charged at him, distracting him, so he shot out its wheels and sized up the cops as potential company. At least they didn't seem _too _scared of him. _Nope, _he thought as he drove away._ If I'm going to have a human, they can't be screaming and crying but they better not be the kind who might put a bullet in my dashboard either_. Striking that kind of happy medium seemed to be difficult, though.

He began to have a strange feeling that all his tires weren't touching the road, which he didn't understand, because they _were._ But the odd sensation kept growing, as if he was a helium balloon floating a little above solid ground, about to cut loose and drift off entirely. Wildrider had been told all his life that he was fragged in the head - as Dead End put it, sanity had a restraining order against him - but now he began to wonder if he was getting _more_ crazy.

Then again, he supposed that once he became crazy enough, he would no longer be able to tell the difference.

He left the busier roads and drove into the suburbs, his shadow sharp-edged and dark in the noonday sun. With an effort he cut his speed (though he couldn't bring himself to turn the music down) and took a street at random. It was a residential neighborhood that was mostly townhouses with lawns before them, and Wildrider stared ahead blankly, hating the silence, hating the emptiness and too preoccupied even to ram the cars parked along the road.

Thirty yards ahead, the door of one of the townhouses opened and a girl ran out. She stumbled down the steps, fell to her knees but was up again at once. Then she bolted across the road.

A man slammed the door open, pulling a gun as he did so. Wildrider heard a sharp _crack_ as the man fired.

On the other side of the road, the girl dropped again, but Wildrider's response was faster. He slammed the gas pedal, covering the distance between him and the girl in an instant, then hit the brakes. Tires and humans screamed simultaneously. Wildrider skidded sideways away from the girl and came to a halt at an angle across the road, between her and the gunman.

_Nope, gunmen_. Another human rushed around the side of the townhouse and fired at him.

The bullet bounced off Wildrider's forcefield and he burst out laughing. _Some excitement, finally! This is more like it!_ He glanced at the girl, wondering if she had been damaged by the gunfire - if so, she wouldn't be much good to him.

She held on to the door of a parked car just behind her and pulled herself up a little. Her jeans were scuffed and frayed at the knees, but she didn't look as though she was leaking, so perhaps the gunman had missed. _Just a kid_, Wildrider thought, _but those are some cool shades she's got on. Glitchin'._ They made her look like the people in _The Matrix_.

"Why are those guys shooting at you?" he said. The two men stared at him, and he guessed they had spotted the Decepticon sigil on his hood.

"I don't know." The girl's shades were askew, and she pushed them into place with a hand that trembled. There were dusty smears on her white sweatshirt.

The gunmen ran in different directions, one to a Toyota parked at the side of the road and the other back behind the townhouse. _A chase?_ Wildrider thought as the first man started his car up. _This day's just getting better._

He flicked the lock nearest to her and swung his door open. "Hop in."

The girl didn't hesitate. She reached out, fumbled at the door for a moment and then climbed into the passenger seat. Wildrider slammed the door shut just as the blue Toyota took off in a shriek of rapid acceleration. "Get the seatbelt on, kiddo," he said. "We might be in for a little turbulence."

The girl strapped herself in and Wildrider's engine snarled into life. He shot ahead and then spun, fishtailing so hard that his trunk slammed into another parked car. The girl gasped at the impact, but he was already off, Enigma's "Push the Limits" blaring from his speakers as he floored the gas pedal.

The Toyota shot through an intersection just before the lights turned red. Wildrider followed a few seconds later, smashing forcefield-to-bumper against a Mazda Miata that had driven forward as the lights changed. _Itty bitty midget cars like that should stay on golf courses,_ he thought as the Miata rocked backward from the impact. It didn't damage him, of course, but it slowed him down just enough that the Toyota gained a little more ground.

"Where are we going?" the girl shouted. Wildrider hoped she wouldn't get too nervous on him. He turned on his internal sensors and saw that she held on to the inside handle of the door tightly with one hand, though her other hand slid over the seat and on to his dashboard. Her touch was so light he couldn't even feel it.

"We're chasing the guy who tried to shoot you!" he yelled back. The only thing he wasn't sure of was whether to blast the Toyota's tires or follow it back to… well, to wherever it had come from.

"Who…" The girl's voice was suddenly so quiet that he had to drop the volume on his stereo to hear her. "Who are you?"

"Name's Wildrider. What's yours?"

"Geri Lombardi." She turned her head from side to side, still running one hand over his dashboard, over the speaker and radar screen and digital speedometer. _Dead End would pitch a fit about fingerprints on the glass_, Wildrider thought, amused.

"Why are _we_ chasing him?" Geri said. "Couldn't you just call the cops and describe him?"

"That wouldn't be any fun!" _And as if any cops could do this_, Wildrider thought as he swerved around a truck, missing it by inches. He saw the flash of blue less than half a mile ahead of him; they were already out of the suburbs, and the Toyota sped up where the road crossed a railway. It shot over the tracks an instant before a red light flashed and the barrier began to descend. Wildrider accelerated as well.

Geri took her free hand off his dashboard and touched the gearshift tentatively, though she didn't try to move it. Wildrider liked that. He'd had humans ride shotgun twice before, but the first time there had been a lot of shrieks and pleas, and the second time the human had tried to take over his controls. Why anyone would try to drive when they had a perfectly competent Stunticon doing that for them – and doing it better and faster – was a mystery.

_Still, I've got a good human this time around_, he thought as he drove towards the crossing. The train's whistle screamed as it headed closer. _Maybe they're braver when they're young?_

The train roared forward as Wildrider raced up to the crossing. The huge locomotive wasn't moving nearly as fast as he was, but along with all its freight it weighed many tons more. He could have tapped his thrusters and sailed over it, but he wanted to see how his new friend would react when they all but kissed the deflector mounted to the front of the train.

No matter what Wildrider's Vector Sigma-granted mental deficiencies were, he had been built with Cybertronic systems and subprocessors that calculated speeds and acceleration in nanoseconds. His gearshift jolted and Geri did the same, snatching her hand back. He hit the crossing, shattered the barrier and zoomed over the tracks. There was a _ssszt_ of static as the train barely touched the rearmost edge of his forcefield.

"Woohoo!" Wildrider bounced off the road on the other side of the crossing, then accelerated again. "So much for the little engine that couldn't! Hey Geri, what'd you think of that?"

"I didn't see it." Her voice was steady and polite, but a firm undertone crept into it. "Mr. Wildrider, I'd appreciate it if you let me out at the nearest--"

"You didn't see me jump that train?" They were on a state highway now, a nice straight deserted stretch of road with a little bridge just ahead, and Wildrider knew he would catch up with the Toyota in seconds. He wondered whether to yell at the driver to stop, or to simply smash into the blue car.

"Mr. Wildrider," Geri began.

"What's with this 'Mr' crap? It's just Wildrider."

"Wildrider," Geri said again. That time she sounded half-annoyed and half-tired, a little like the way Dead End spoke when he was trying to explain something to teammates who were uninterested or distracted. "I don't know if you realize this, but I'm blind."

"Huh?" Wildrider said, and forgot about the chase for a moment.

The Toyota hit its brakes just before the bridge and slewed hard to the left. It might have peeled away and escaped if Wildrider had cut his own speed to take the bridge, but since he was going at the same two hundred miles per hour, he rammed hood-first into the Toyota's side. Geri was flung forward, her seatbelt locking to hold her back, but her free hand struck the radio's controls. The music was abruptly cut off as the radio switched to a local station, and an announcer's voice began to speak instead.

Spinning from the impact, the Toyota smashed through a guardrail as Wildrider reversed hastily. He had one glimpse of the driver's terrified face before the Toyota plunged off the side of the road, crashing into the creek bank thirty feet below.

Wildrider rolled back on to the road just as the announcer said, "This is an activation of the Amber Alert system." He stopped moving. "The Santa Clara Police Department is looking for a child who is believed to be in danger. The child, Geraldine Lombardi, is eleven years old, with brown hair, and was last seen wearing a white sweatshirt and blue jeans. Authorities say she has been abducted by a Decepticon in the shape of a grey Ferrari, license number WLDRDR, who should be considered armed and extremely dangerous. Do not approach--"

The radio flicked off and there was a long pause.

"Oh… _slag_," Wildrider said finally.

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**Tugera**: Back when I lived with my parents, there was a cat which used to come and sleep on their car's hood (cats just love finding something warm to curl up on). I like cats, but I had to keep cleaning all those little pawprints off.

And now I'm imagining the cat as Ravage. Heh.

**dixiegurl13** : I'd write about the Seekers, but I can't do aerial combat scenes as well as some people can. ;) Appreciate the feedback.

**Fire From Above, ArtisticIllusions, GrimlockX4** : Thanks for the reviews! Glad you're enjoying the read.

**tomorrow4eva** : Exactly like a pet for a disturbed child. I think Wildrider walks a fine line between madness and sanity, but the presence of someone more mentally stable than he is (i.e. 99.9% of the rest of the world) helps keep him in a position where he can use his craziness rather than being controlled by it.

That's what's so much fun about TF fanfiction, by the way – so many of the characters are dysfunctional in different ways, but they're vivid and believable and sympathetic as well.

**Taipan Kiryu** : Thanks for your kind words on the story, and the next one too! I'm looking forward to writing from Motormaster's point of view; that's going to be a real challenge.

Wildrider's much more fun to write. Half the time, his own personality supplies peculiar but cute moments like the sandcastle scene, and the other half, he gets himself into so much trouble that the plot keeps racing forward.

Believe it or not, I started reading TF fanfics without ever having seen a single episode of any series and without knowing who any of the characters were. Luckily I found two very good fics, and they made me so curious about the show that I watched it. So my own fics are a way to give something back to the community, and maybe they'll interest someone who might not have noticed these characters otherwise, just like what happened to me.


	4. In which Geri makes a phone call

**Chapter 4: In which Geri makes a phone call**

Hands pushing down on her seat, Geri shifted closer to the door. "You're a Decepticon?" she said.

"Stunticon." Wildrider didn't know what to do now. She still didn't seem terrified or upset, but the announcement that had just gone out... once the Autobots heard it, he wasn't sure what would happen. They were protective enough of ordinary humans, so when they heard that a Stunticon had kidnapped a little blind girl, the entire lot from Optimus Prime to Bumblebee would be out gunning for a piece of him.

"I wondered why I heard your voice coming from two separate angles." Geri was pressed against the door now, so that when she ran her fingers over it, fumbling a little, she had to bend her elbow at an awkward angle. "If you're a Decepticon, why'd you help me?"

_'Cause I'm crazy. Everyone says so, and now I know they're right_. Wildrider realized at the last moment that she was trying to get out. _Nope. I can't just leave her by the side of the road, not after going to all this trouble to get her in the first place._

So just as her hand closed over the door handle, he slid the locks down. He did that as quietly as possible, but of course she heard it. Her fingers tightened around the handle so hard that her knuckles stood out like knots.

Wildrider glanced at the cloud of smoke and dust that drifted up from the wreck of the blue Toyota and decided to get out of there before he became wanted for vehicular homicide as well as kidnapping. Not that he cared about either, but he had a feeling that being hunted down too intensively might throw a wrench in any fun remaining for him. He started his engine again and drove over the bridge.

Geri let go of the door handle. "Where are you going?"

"I'm not sure, kiddo." For the first time it occurred to Wildrider to access his navigation system and maps. _We're out of the city limits already_. "Y'know, we could hide out in--"

"I'd like to get out, please," Geri said. "Could you pull over at the nearest gas station?"

"But…" Wildrider sped up and tried to think of some way to change her mind. "There were two of those guys trying to kill you. The other one could still be waiting for you to go back home."

"I didn't say I was going back home." She folded her arms. "I'm going to call my dad at the store. Or 911. Whoever I get first. They can pick me up from the gas station… and I'll let the police know that you didn't kidnap me, so they'll stop searching for you."

_Even having all the Autobots after me won't be as bad as being alone again_, Wildrider thought miserably. "Are you sure?"

Geri nodded. "My dad's going to be so worried about me."

Wildrider knew that any other Decepticon, and maybe all of the Stunticons as well, would have told him to simply take the human with him if he wanted to. He was in charge there; he was the one with the firepower and the speed and the strength that gave him the right to do whatever he wanted. He didn't need to listen to any human, especially not to a kid who couldn't even see where she was going.

_But what's the point of having a prisoner?_ he thought. He needed a friend who would keep him company and talk to him, not a hostage who (for all her physical weakness) seemed like the type who would clam up if she was really torqued off. And while her family worrying about her wasn't as bad as his missing the other Stunticons – for one thing, human groups weren't gestalt teams – he supposed it wouldn't make things any better either.

So he changed lanes, slowed down without his usual slam of brakes and pulled into the parking lot of the first gas station he saw, not much caring whether the clerk inside was calling the Autobots or not. He drew up beside the payphones and flicked his door open, though he didn't switch his engine off.

"There," he said curtly.

"Thanks," Geri said, and got out. Keeping one hand resting lightly on his side, she held her other arm stretched out and began to work her way around him. _She can't see where the phones are_, Wildrider thought.

Part of him – an upset, lonely, resentful part that reminded him a little of Drag Strip – told him to simply drive away and leave her there if she couldn't stand to be around him. For a moment he thought of doing that.

Then another part of him asked if he really wanted to sink to the level of the humans who had shot at her. Wildrider enjoyed causing havoc and mayhem on a grand scale – demolition derbies, leveling buildings, shooting Aerialbots out of the sky, that kind of thing – but leaving a blind girl to fumble around searching for a phone seemed kind of small and petty in comparison.

"Three feet to your left," he said.

"Appreciate that," Geri said as she pushed her shades up on to her forehead. She put the nearest receiver to her ear, holding it in place against her shoulder as she slipped coins into a slot. Her fingers felt the phone's buttons, then pressed a combination.

"Hi, this is Geri. Is my dad there?"

_I might as well fill up while I'm here_, Wildrider thought as he checked his fuel levels and self-diagnostics. _Then once I hear the cops heading this way I'll take off and… and go someplace else._

"Who are--" Geri began. There was a long pause. "_What?_"

"What's wrong?" Wildrider said. Unlike most of his teammates, he never stayed in a sour mood for long. He supposed that was another fault of his, the inability to hold on to any emotional state other than his default ready-for-action.

Slipping her hand over the mouthpiece, Geri turned to look at him and he had to remind himself that she didn't really see him. Her eyes were wide and filled with fear. "The guy who answered said they have my dad, and if I want to see him again I… I have to…"

Without thinking, Wildrider transformed, reached down and took the receiver from her. He had meant to ask a few questions of his own, but since the phones were made for creatures both shorter and weaker than him, one tug snapped the cord and separated the base of the phone from the receiver. Wildrider was left holding it between thumb and forefinger while Geri stared up at him in bewilderment.

"What did you just do?" she said. Wildrider couldn't help giggling; it suddenly occurred to him how silly he must look.

"This isn't funny!" Geri said. "My dad could be…" Her voice was suddenly hoarse, and her mouth trembled.

A siren wailed far away. Wildrider dropped the useless receiver and transformed as the sound grew louder. "I'm heading out," he said. "What do you want to do?"

Geri bit her lip, then reached for the nearest door. Wildrider flicked the lock open and she scrambled into the driver's seat, belting up at once. _Good, she might be upset but she's not stupid._

"Will you help us?" she said quietly.

_Motormaster'll kill me if I say yes_, Wildrider thought, _even if I'm only doing it so I can have fun_. It was one thing to kidnap humans and toy with them; it was another thing entirely to give in when they asked for help.

But since he had picked her up, he hadn't had that strange feeling that he was growing more and more disconnected from reality. _Okay then._ He'd get into trouble for it later, but he had always lived in the present; he didn't waste time worrying about something that was going to happen to him in the future.

And it beat being alone.

"Sure, kiddo," he said as he tore out of the parking lot, smashing a parked car out of his way in a spray of broken glass. His engine revved and tires screeched as he turned onto the road at too sharp an angle, Bon Jovi's "Welcome To Wherever You Are" wailing out from his speakers. Geri braced herself against the door with one hand and adjusted the volume with the other.

"Let's find someplace quiet," she said. "I need to think about what to do."

"Ugh, not too quiet. I might need to think too."

* * *

**Taipan Kiryu**: Thanks for the compliments! I did a lot of writing before I started on fanfics, so that helped, and I love protagonists with serious flaws, like the Stunticons. They're easy to write about. I'd feel guilty if I put a very nice or good character through hell, but with the Stunticons, nothing could come more naturally. ;)

Also glad the OC works for you. I figured that few sane humans would willingly jump on board a Stunticon unless they really couldn't see what they were getting into.

**GrimlockX4, Player3** : Appreciate the reviews! And yes, expect a heap of ** in future chapters.

**tomorrow4eva**: The story was inspired by the episode "The Girl Who Loved Powerglide", so I started out with a girl who needs to be rescued from kidnappers. Their reasons are very different from those of the 'cons in the episode, though.

The chapter's got a few clues to Geri being blind, such as her wearing shades and (as you noticed), using her hands to figure out what kind of vehicle she's in, not that Wildrider realizes it until she spells it out. That's part of the fun of writing this particular story – both of them get clues to what kind of situation they're in, but they don't figure it out until it's too late. Good to know you're enjoying the story!


	5. In which Wildrider has a plan

**Chapter 5: In which Wildrider has a plan**

"Brace for impact!" Wildrider yelled. A moment later he smashed through a wall of the huge department store.

"I don't believe this," Geri said after she had struggled back up to a sitting position. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the shriek of an alarm system. "Wouldn't it have been easier to just drive up to the front?"

"That's no fun. And why'd they call the place 'Target' if they didn't want anyone to hit it?" Wildrider fired off a few shots to get the attention of whichever humans seemed uninjured and before three minutes were up, all the supplies they needed were in his trunk. He slammed his gearshift into reverse and hit the accelerator, his steering wheel spinning. Even with her seatbelt in place, Geri was tossed from side to side.

"D-do you always drive like this?" she said.

"Nah. Sometimes I go faster. Like _this_." Wildrider rocketed up the driveway, striking an oncoming police car with the edge of both forcefield and fender and sending the black-and-white into a spin. He giggled and tore off with a screech of tires.

"I'll just keep my mouth shut from now on." Geri hunched down in her seat.

"No, don't! I hate it when things are quiet." Wildrider slowed down. "Okay, we got all the fuel and supplies you need, and paint for me. You wanna catch a movie now?"

"No!" Geri said. "My father could be dead, in case you've forgotten!" Since Wildrider _had_ forgotten, he tried to think of some way to change the subject. "And how would I watch the movie?"

"Oh, right, the optics thing. Couldn't you get those replaced?" _Hook could do it in no time_. "Doesn't sound like a lot of fun, not being able to see."

"I think we have different ideas of fun." Now she sounded tired as well as annoyed, and Wildrider thought that humans could be very touchy. "And no, they can't be replaced."

"Too bad." Wildrider wondered what would happen to him if he ever became permanently blind. He supposed he could still function in a merge, which at least meant a one-legged Menasor would not need to hop into a battlefield, but the rest of the time he would be worse than useless. _I'd end up deactivated sooner or later_, he thought, _and I'd probably be the one doing the deactivating._

Geri shrugged. "You can't miss what you've never had."

"What, you've always been like that?" _And here I am thinking it was because of another attack she survived._

"Uh-huh," Geri said, as if there was nothing at all wrong about it. "Why? You sound surprised."

Wildrider said nothing, because he couldn't understand how humans endured processes which gave rise to such malfunctions, damaging them from the get-go, creating them flawed. He could almost hear Megatron's voice saying that was typical of organics – inefficient, defective, one more thing that destined them for destruction.

Abruptly he swerved off the highway and took a narrower road that headed up into thickly wooded hills and looked as though it would turn into a hiking trail soon; it had just occurred to him that meeting another Decepticon at that point would be as disastrous as running into the Autobots. No, it would be worse. Killing Autobots was one thing; deactivating another Decepticon to make sure Megatron never found out he was harboring a human… well, that was a different matter.

"Are you all right?" Geri said, leaning forward.

"I'm fine, kiddo," Wildrider said, feeling relieved as soon as they were out of sight of anyone who wasn't actively searching for them. He knocked over a sign about cougars – those were fuzzy kittens for anyone used to Ravage – as he pulled off the trail and parked under the trees, twigs and dry leaves crunching under his tires. His engine knocked softly as it began to cool down.

He hoped Geri was in a better state of mind as well. After they had driven away from the gas station, she had asked to make another call to her father's base, just in case whoever had spoken to her the first time had been bluffing. Wildrider was used to orders from other Decepticons, threats from Autobots and pleas for mercy from humans, but polite requests were new enough that he found himself turning into another gas station before he could think twice.

He pulled out almost as fast, since all that Geri did was dial the same number on a pay phone and ask if her father was there. Then she replaced the receiver. "Who answered this time?" Wildrider said curiously.

"A police officer." She crossed her arms, hands holding her elbows, and looked down.

"Why didn't you tell them what that guy said to you the first time you called?" The human had given her a location, which was out in the boondocks according to Wildrider's nav system, and had told her to be there by the next day at the latest.

"What good would that do?" Geri said without raising her head. "It's not illegal to give someone your address and ask them to meet you there. And if they find out I told the police, what'll happen to my dad?"

Not having any answer to that, Wildrider resorted to his usual method of filling in the silence and turned the radio on. Unfortunately he got a local station where someone stupid even by human standards was talking excitedly about the "two related kidnappings" and speculating on whether the Decepticons were responsible for both, which irritated him and made Geri keep wiping her eyes with the cuffs of her sweatshirt.

After that she was very quiet until he decided they needed supplies. Planning ahead had never been Wildrider's strong point, so he was pleased about the supplies. Even if Geri had somehow been able to forage for herself in the woods, he didn't think she would last for long against a cougar.

_Why would a human want her, though?_ he wondered. _Badly enough to kidnap someone else to get her._ Humans were weird and he rarely understood why they acted the way they did, but he had a feeling that he needed to make sense of this situation, and to do it fast.

Geri got out and felt her way along his side until she reached the trunk, taking out a pillow, a blanket and two candy bars before she climbed slowly back into the front seat. _Maybe she's an actress or a celebrity or something,_ Wildrider thought.

"So, who are you really?" he said.

"Excuse me?"

"C'mon, you can tell _me_," Wildrider said in his cutest, most coaxing voice, though for some reason that made the girl pull back with a wary look. "What's your real name?"

Geri unlocked one of the doors. "I told you my real name."

"Well, okay," Wildrider said, locking the door again. "Are you very rich, then?"

"Do I look rich?"

"I can't tell with humans." Wildrider huffed air through his intakes. "So I guess you're not an heiress or anything?"

Geri's forehead crinkled. "No. My dad manages an auto parts store."

"Cool! I'll drop by there if I need anything."

"Please don't. We'll FedEx you whatever you want."

"Okay." Wildrider remembered what he had been trying to work out. "So if you're not rich, why are these slaggers trying to kidnap you?"

"Wish I knew," Geri said, curling up against the back of the seat. She pulled the blanket over her shoulders and spoke quietly. "When I got home and that guy grabbed me and told me to shut up and come with him, I thought he was one of those… those pervs you see on _America's Most Wanted_." Wildrider wondered what she was talking about. "But there were two of them with guns, waiting for me. That just doesn't seem like the kind of thing they warn you about in No Go Tell, you know what I mean?"

"Uh, no, but… you don't need to explain." Wildrider had a feeling that he was better off not knowing. "You sure you don't have anything on you worth shooting for?"

"Like what?" Geri tilted the seat back and stretched along it.

"I dunno. A really valuable piece of jewelry?"

"All I've got on me is my library card and a chapstick, and if they'd asked nicely I'd have given them the chapstick." She closed her eyes.

Wildrider endured the silence for as long as he could, which was about three minutes. "Hey Geri, wake up!"

"What?" She sat up with a start.

"I have another idea," Wildrider said. "What did you say your last name was, Lombardi? All right, what kind of name is that?"

"Wildrider…" She rested her forehead in one hand and sighed. "It's Italian. Why?"

Wildrider played his trump card. "Maybe your dad has mob connections and some rival crime boss has taken him out."

Geri lowered her hand and stared ahead at his dashboard. "Weird, that news broadcast just said 'armed and dangerous'. It didn't mention 'totally cracked'. Look, the closest my dad ever came to the mob was when he watched _The Godfather_, and if I were a Mafia princess I think I'd have known about it by now." She lay back down. "Believe me, there's nothing special about me."

"Except you being blind," Wildrider said. Her optic ridges came together. "What? Don't humans call that kind of malf… uh, that kind of thing special, like the Special Olympics?"

"I guess." The lines smoothed themselves off her face, though she didn't look any happier. "I guess it is kind of special – this kind of blindness is because of some genetic condition that only three thousand people in this country have."

"Wow," Wildrider said. A rare genetic condition… did that make her a mutant? "You sure you didn't get something cool to balance it out, like a secret power?" _Maybe that's why they're after her._

"Sorry to disappoint you, but no." She closed her eyes. "Now could I please get some sleep?"

"Okay," Wildrider said, and put on some appropriate music, Roxette's "Sleeping In My Car", at which point Geri threw her pillow at the dashboard and informed him that going to sleep meant doing so in peace (Wildrider made gagging noises) and quiet (Wildrider pointed out that he transformed into a Ferrari, not a hearse). Finally they compromised. Wildrider traveled two hours to a drive-in theater, where he could watch the movie without waking Geri up, and once that was over he slipped into recharge as well.

He came back online just before dawn and drove back to the secluded hiking trail, turning over an idea in his mind. _I can always smash into whatever house that slagging human is hiding in, but Geri's father's probably not going to be in the same place. Even humans aren't that dumb. And if he gets deactivated, she'll be upset._

_But if I know where he's been stashed, I can grab him and get going. Okay, but how to find out? _He thought it over. _What if that human believes he's won? If he gets Geri without a fuss, he won't stick around – he'll take her back to his base or to whoever's behind all this, and that's probably where her father's being held too. So all I have to do is tail the slagger, and problem solved. Not bad!_

"Are you insane?" Geri said after she woke up and heard the plan. "You want me to just go up to the bastard who took my dad and let him do whatever he wants with me?" She unlocked the door again.

"Quit playing with the lock!" Wildrider said. What did she think she was going to do – walk off and fall down a ravine? Though he supposed she wasn't the first human who would have preferred that to hanging out with him. "Look, kiddo, they don't want to kill you--"

"How the heck would you know? And don't call me kiddo! I'm going to be twelve next month."

"Well, that makes you younger than me!" _Though not by a whole lot_. "So I'm the more experienced one here. And if that guy really wants you dead, he could've done it when they grabbed you in your house, right? But they only shot at you when you were trying to get away. So they must've had orders to bring you in alive if they could."

Geri was silent for what felt like a very long time. "What if he's angry and… and takes it out on me?" she said finally.

"If he hits you I'll turn him into roadkill. But he won't have the time. See, once you're there he'll want to get going in case the cops trailed you. So he'll hit the road with you and I'll be following."

"You're sure about all this." Geri's voice was so toneless that it wasn't clear whether she was asking a question or not.

"Yup." Wildrider had plenty of faults, but a lack of confidence in himself had never been one of them. "Takes one criminal to figure out another."

"I guess I don't have much of a choice."

"Sure you do. You can go to the cops. I'll let you off outside a gas station and wait till they get there. Slag, you can go to the 'bots if you like, no hard feelings." He paused for effect. "Or you can trust me."

"I do trust you. Sort of. When you're not driving, anyway."

"So… hardly ever?" Wildrider sagged down on his shocks in what he hoped was a dramatically crushed pose. "Thanks heaps."

Geri ignored that. "But this isn't about trust. It's about whether the bait in the trap gets eaten or not."

"Hey," Wildrider said as quietly as he could. "I'll be really close by, kid--uh, Geri. Now, can you do the hood?"

Geri climbed out and complained about something called "whiplash" (which Wildrider didn't understand – had someone hit her with a whip?) but with some direction she spray-painted his hood grey to cover the Decepticon symbol. Wildrider thought that wasn't likely to fool even the dumbest Autobot, but it might keep the humans in the dark for at least a little longer. Then another idea struck him and he transformed.

"What are you doing?" Geri said as he snapped open the armor plating over his chest.

"Something Hook might have to fix later." It wasn't the first time Wildrider had looked down to see his own internal circuitry laid bare, but it was definitely the first time he'd been the direct cause of that. He kept one optic on his diagnostic queue, prodding at components until he all but dislodged his emergency beacon, which popped up in the queue at once. Then he yanked it free.

"_Owww_! Slagging Primus, does Vortex do this kind of thing for fun? And they say _I'm_ crazy." The beacon wasn't too large, so it could fit inside Geri's sweatshirt, though she said she felt as though she was smuggling a textbook. Their visit to the department store had resulted in some spare clothes, though, so she pulled a thick jacket on and buttoned it up the front.

"There you go," Wildrider said. "It's activated, so even if I lose you in traffic I can trace you." That made her look a little less petrified, so he decided not to mention the fact that the beacon would register on any of the other Stunticons' sensors if they were within a thousand-mile radius. The thought of Motormaster tracking that signal down to find a human holding it was definitely not a fun one.

"Okay, let's go," he said finally, and Geri got up without a word. Once he had transformed and she was inside, though, she clutched both the door handle and the seatbelt tightly, and for once Wildrider didn't think his driving had anything to do with that.

Also for the first time, he began to doubt himself. What if he was making a mistake, handing her over to a kidnapper who'd been ready to shoot her when she ran? What if the guy decided that a live prisoner was too risky? Even a fully-grown human was small, slow and weak compared to a Stunticon, but what if he couldn't get to Geri in time? _Slag it, if only I wasn't alone!_

He drove back down to the highway, for once forgetting to turn his radio on. _I'm not used to coming up with plans by myself, that's all it is_. When they had a mission, Motormaster told them what to do, and if it was at all complicated, Breakdown figured out how to do it while Dead End pointed out all the things that might possibly go wrong. For a moment Wildrider thought of comming them, but he decided against it. Even if he somehow escaped Motormaster's attention and didn't disrupt their special secret mission, the other Stunticons might not be in too much of a hurry to get involved in what looked like a weird, complicated human situation.

_And besides, she asked me for help – not any of the others_, me. _I can handle it._

He turned on to a side road that stretched out emptily into the distance with only a few buildings here and there. Trees clustered around them and Wildrider could see fields between the trunks. He would have grimaced if he wasn't in alt-mode; he liked the smooth shiny hardness of cities and roadways, not the soft organic growths that seemed to cover so much of the ground like a green version of Cosmic Rust.

"There should be a house up ahead." Geri's voice was very quiet. "Brown, with a barn behind it."

"I see it," Wildrider said, and pulled over. He couldn't afford to be seen, and this location gave him hardly any cover. He popped the door lock. "Cross the road when you get out, and you'll be about fifty feet away from it. There's a Dodge station wagon parked outside." _Should be really easy to follow that._

Geri got out and fished her shades out of a pocket, but they were broken. Wildrider wasn't surprised; when he was driving, other humans had broken bigger things, like their necks. "Well, here goes nothing," she whispered.

The front door shut. Geri touched the side of it, her hand flat and light against grey plating for a moment – not long enough for him to tell if her fingers were trembling – before she stepped away. Her hair was tangled and her jeans still dusty, but her shoulders straightened as she began to walk.

Wildrider turned, holding his speed low as he slipped across the road and behind the nearest house. He covered the fifty feet in a few seconds but kept the trees between him and anyone who was watching from across the road.

Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" thrummed from his speakers. His engine growled softly.

Geri touched the side of the station wagon, then the peeling fence that surrounded the house. Without looking back, she worked her way up the cracked porch steps and knocked at the door. It opened and she was inside in the next moment, as if she had been swallowed up by it.

With a click, the door closed. Wildrider revved his engine – he had never been able to wait patiently for long. There was no sign of anything happening in the small house and he wished humans came with built-in comm links. At least that way he would know what was happening to Geri.

Iron Maiden's "2 Minutes to Midnight" began to play.

A motor started up. Wildrider nearly leaped forward but stopped himself just in time. _Finally, they're on the move!_ The sound came from the barn behind the house, but he guessed the humans had another car parked there.

Except the sound was _weird_ somehow… an engine, but not like a car's… and he could hear a spinning noise as well, sort of like a propellor--

_That's not a barn,_ he thought, _it's a fragging hangar!_

He tore forward across the road, ramming the station wagon out of his way, and tapped his thrusters. He leaped fifteen feet in the air and came down on the roof of the house, which was enough for him to see the light airplane that rolled out across the field, its speed increasing.

Then the roof collapsed under a ton of metal and Wildrider crashed down into the house, a dinner table shattering beneath him. He fired, blowing the rear wall to splinters, and shot out of the ruined house. The plane lifted off and was airborne.

Wildrider almost hit his thrusters again. _No, if I damage that Aerialbot-wannabe and it crashes…_ Snarling, he slammed the gas instead. The plane was climbing higher and higher, but it didn't matter. He had to keep up with it somehow, no matter where it went.

A siren howled in the distance as he raced after the speck in the sky.

* * *

**tomorrow4eva** : Let me know if I ever approach sensitive new-age Decepticon territory. :) Yes, Wildrider's in it for the fun and the companionship, and he doesn't realize that there's a problem with this mindset until it's too late. Not that Geri's blameless, though. Asking Stunticons for help isn't the smartest thing to do, because even if they agree, they have their own ideas of what constitutes help.

**herongale**: Much appreciate the feedback from you and Dante. I hope the story continues to keep you both entertained!

It's interesting you should mention how to handle a character being blind, by the way, since just today I read a post about this in fictionrants, with a specific reference to Transformers being affected. A character's disability (and there is actually such a genetic condition causing blindness) often factors into their personality and the plot, but it shouldn't be the sum total of who they are, and not used solely for angst. Besides, it's kind of fun to write Wildrider being insensitive and non-PC about that.

Thanks also for the comment about his music choices being appropriate. Mine are quite different - I listen to 80's pop and New Age/Celtic music - so coming up with the soundtrack for this story has been an interesting experience.

**Ajnin** : You're right, she does sound older than eleven. I rarely have children in my stories (this would be the second time) and that's probably why – I write them precocious so they can take part in the action, but that's a characteristic that may or may not come off as realistic.

**GrimlockX4, Fire from Above, Cybernetic Mango** : Thanks for the reviews!

**Taipan Kiryu** : Good to hear I'm on track with Wildrider's POV. Yes, he's got enough problems with being crazy, hyperactive, amoral and sedatephobic without being evil on top of it. I don't think he'd be good at offering anyone emotional support or helping in some way that didn't involve action, but with this situation he gets to cause as much destruction as he likes and still have someone tagging along with him.

And I think part of the appeal of protecting Geri is that if he succeeds, he'll come up smelling of roses at the end. Then the Autobots will either feel stupid for believing he kidnapped her, or frustrated that they've got to let him go despite all the havoc he's caused along the way (because they could hardly attack him after he actually _helped_ a human).

As for your sanity… after this chapter, would you still feel like jumping on board? :)


	6. In which Wildrider plays crazy

**Chapter 6: In which Wildrider plays crazy**

_No choice_, Wildrider thought. _I have to fly._

The plane, as well as being faster, soared over waterways, buildings and everything other obstacle before him. Wildrider had hoped to trail Geri's kidnappers unnoticed through traffic (as unnoticed as he ever was, anyway) but that plan had gone about as well as Starscream's periodic attempts to help Megatron kick the leadership habit. The best he could do now was follow at a distance and hope none of the humans looked back to see him on their tail.

He transformed, anti-grav kicking in, and activated his thrusters. Flying wasn't half as much fun as driving, of course, but it beat losing the plane. _I'll stay about half a mile behind_, he thought as air rushed over him and hummed in his audials. At least his radar picked up his emergency beacon in the plane ahead.

Then his radar picked up something else – closing in fast behind him – just as the humming sound grew louder. Still flying, Wildrider turned to see a red-and-white helicopter narrowing the distance between them, rotors a blur.

"Where's the child, Stunticon?" Blades yelled at him.

Wildrider reacted instinctively, braking his flight and pulling his scattershot gun from subspace. In the moment it took him to do that, Blades – far faster in the air – hit his maximum velocity and hit Wildrider as well. Metal impacted on energy with a sharp electric _hissss_, rotors whap-whap-whapping so loudly Wildrider couldn't hear his own laughter. The Protectobot helicopter was on top of him, but his forcefield protected him from damage and he could hardly fail to miss at point-blank range--

Except Blades transformed and was suddenly a deadweight. Wildrider's own flight mechanisms faltered as they tried to carry the Protectobot as well, and he dropped out of the sky. He fired in the next instant and Blades was gone, but it was already too late. Something green came up at him fast. He spaced the gun and transformed, hitting the ground with the edge of his roof and rolling over until he was on his tires again.

His forcefield still held, though, and when he looked around he saw he had landed on a knoll overlooking a highway with heavy traffic. _The Protectosnots won't chase me through that – they'll endanger too many humans that way._ He gunned his engine and roared down the knoll, slipping into the flow of traffic with all the grace of a shark in a tuna shoal.

Feeling more confident at once, he kept one optic on his radar and the other on the cars before, behind and to both sides of him as he wove in and out of the lanes. It didn't matter that the traffic was bumper-to-bumper. The hard shoulder and the median were just alternate lanes for him and the occasional laserbolt or snap of, "Outta my way! Decepticon terrorist comin' through!" did wonders as well. _Haha, I'd like to see that lumbering moron Hot Spot try to follow me through--_

A riderless motorcycle appeared in his rearview mirror.

_Oh, slag._

Wildrider could have groaned aloud. That particular Protectobot was narrower and more maneuverable than him, slipping fluidly through the traffic and coming up fast on the right, between the Ferrari and an empty school bus. _Okay, if you want to be the filling in a nice metal sandwich_, Wildrider thought, and slewed hard to the right.

Groove's vaporators flipped down and he fired at the road. Wildrider never knew what was in the blast, just that it literally lifted the motorcycle off the ground. Groove leaped ahead and Wildrider crashed into the school bus, rocking the larger vehicle to one side.

A siren screamed as Groove landed on the asphalt just ahead, bouncing a little. He raced ahead, only to hit his brakes and come to a skidding stop perpendicular to the highway, blocking the way. The school bus lurched into the guardrail to one side of the highway, recovered at the last moment and rolled ahead, wheels fighting for purchase on damp earth.

Wildrider slammed the brakes on as well and managed to halt less than twenty feet from the motorcycle. The Protectobot was lighter and less well-defended, but he hadn't moved. That should have made him a collection of scrap metal to be picked out of a Stunticon's tire-treads later, but at that moment Wildrider couldn't help wondering whether to tell the Protectobot what had actually happened. _He didn't even attack me before, so maybe he'll believe--_

"C'mon, Wildrider, let her go," Groove called out. "That's not cool, snatching a kid. You want a hostage that bad, just let her go and take me."

_Forget it,_ Wildrider thought. His audials picked up the buzz of rotors as Blades started to descend a short distance behind him. Oncoming traffic halted. "Nope," he said, raising his voice to be heard. "She's a lot more fun than you."

"Fun?" Blades touched down across all three lanes, parallel to Groove. "What the slag are you doing to her?"

_They're trying to box me in,_ Wildrider thought, _not that it'll work_. There was an exit ramp to his left if he had wanted to escape, which he didn't. At least not until he made slagging sure the Protectobots wouldn't follow. Groove was the easier target, but knocking out their air support was more important.

He threw his transmission into reverse just as Streetwise roared up the exit ramp. Wildrider turned to face the new threat, trying to bring his guns to bear, but he was almost stationery and the Protectobot interceptor was moving at full speed. Streetwise slammed into him in a broadside collision.

All four of Wildrider's tires left the ground and he flipped over on to his roof. The force of the impact sent him rolling into the weakened guardrail, which gave way completely. The world turned to a revolving blur. Wildrider plummeted down the slope on the other side of the highway and landed with a heavy thud on his side in a patch of wet dirt.

For a moment he couldn't move. Even though his forcefield still held and he hadn't taken significant structural damage, he was shaken up and disoriented. And if the other two Protectobots were there as well, and they merged…

_Not going down that easily_, he thought and flexed two doors open to push himself back on to his tires. That was when a brilliant flash of light went off, turning everything to white blankness. Wildrider's left optic shut down automatically from the overload; the right, since he had been lying on his right side and it was partially smeared with dirt, stayed online.

He reeled on two tires, his center of gravity momentarily unbalanced, then thudded down hard on to all four wheels. _Frag it, can't see from one--no, wait, if the 'bots think I can't see at all--_

He shrieked, which wasn't too difficult to do since his left optic was little more than a cluster of pain sensors all operating on maximum. Streetwise and Groove stood high above him on the slope, photon pistols in their hands, and there was a thrum of rotors as Blades transformed and began to rise into the air just behind them.

"You slagging cowards!" Wildrider screamed, and fired straight ahead at the slope, lasers blasting chunks of earth that flew into the air and spattered him. He crawled back a little, twisting from side to side as if unsure where the next attack would come from. "Guess it takes three of you to tackle one Stunticon! Hey, maybe you want to merge before my optics come back online?"

"Considering you abducted a blind human, that's only justice," Streetwise said. "Now tell us where she is!"

"Well, she _was_ in my passenger compartment, but thanks to you she's all leaky and deactivated now!" Wildrider tossed off his most manic giggle, which sounded insane even to his audials. "Good thing my windows are the same color as squishy insides, huh?"

"You're dead, Stunticon!" Blades yelled and shot forward.

Streetwise shouted something about taking the perp into custody, but Wildrider had already triggered his thrusters. Hiis front half jolted sharply off the ground, and both his forward-mounted guns fired.

With only one optic, his depth perception wasn't good and the blast hit Blades side-on rather than taking out his rotors, but it sent the helicopter reeling into Groove. They went down together in a flailing heap and Wildrider laughed again as he smashed his accelerator flat. He hurtled backwards into a near-empty road – human vehicles were all but crashing into each other to stay out of the way – and turned simultaneously, engine revving as he shot forward again.

In his rearview mirror he saw Streetwise transform and plunge down the slope after him, apparently realizing that he was a little less blind than he'd let on. Wildrider swerved and dodged through traffic but the Protectobot hung on stubbornly, and the sound of his siren blaring filled the air even when Wildrider finally lost sight of him in the traffic.

_Stupid fragger_, Wildrider thought as he started to lose his temper. The plane had already disappeared from his radar, though his emergency beacon was still active and pinging.

_I'm not the only one with sensors, though – the 'bot's got them too. He'd never have hit me if he thought I had a human inside, and now he's tracking me._ Wildrider wondered if there was any way to get off that radar short of simply driving until Streetwise ran out of fuel.

_Or until more of them show up_, he thought as five new blips appeared on his radar. _Great. Wonderful. Aerialbots. So much for taking out their air support._

Abruptly one of the blips disappeared. Wildrider's headlights flashed a blink and he wondered if the rest of them would somehow vanish as well. _Nope, just the one, probably the idiot who flies into buildings. Haha, he must've knocked himself out--_

_Wait a second, if he's offline, he doesn't show up on my radar. If I'm offline, will I be off their screens as well?_

Wildrider raced under a bridge, shouldering a motor home out of the way, and a warning flashed in his diagnostic queue; his forcefield couldn't take much more punishment. He ignored that. _I can take myself out easily – just hit something hard enough – but then I'll wake up in the Autobot brig. I have to go offline_ and _keep moving somehow…_

He saw an open eight-car carrier on the access road that ran parallel to the highway. The carrier wasn't traveling nearly as fast as he was, but it had three vehicles on its upper rack and a bulky station wagon below. _Good enough,_ Wildrider thought and fired at the nearest car to give Streetwise a little distraction. He peeled off and raced down the nearest exit, heading for the carrier at top speed.

The ramp was lifted, but that made no difference. Wildrider flicked his thrusters and plunged into the carrier as he deliberately turned his forcefield off. The station wagon was chained or clamped in place; he didn't have time to see which it was before he rammed it head-on. His grille crumpled, his headlights and radiator broke simultaneously and his hood flew up. There was an instant of shattering pain. Then he was falling into the silence he had always feared - dark, empty, endless - and it closed over him.

* * *

**Fire From Above** : That's part of the fun of writing Wildrider - he's got so much _joie de vivre_. Even if his _joie_ consists of vandalism, robbery and utter chaos, he's loving every minute of it and his enthusiasm is contagious.

**tomorrow4eva** : You're right, an emergency beacon could be picked up by any Decepticon. Thanks for noticing that! I think I'll edit it to say that any of the Stunticons would actually respond, because some (or most) of the other Decepticons probably wouldn't. Especially not if they can tell that it's a Stunticon beacon; there's too much rivalry between combiner teams and just plain dislike for the Stunticons.

Writing Wildrider's thought processes was a complete blast. And he's entirely serious about the bizarre ideas he comes up with, too - from his perspective, which is that of a half-sane overly dramatic giant robot who watches too much TV, his theories make perfect sense.

**Taipan Kiryu** : Yes, Target is a superstore like Wal-Mart or K-Mart, with a logo that looks like a large red-and-white bullseye. I'll bet someone in real life has tried to shoot at that.

Good to hear that you like the relationship between Geri and Wildrider. :) If Geri was the type of person who put up with ill-treatment, Wildrider might well oblige. But although she's quiet and polite, she won't let anyone push her around either (dealing with a single-parent family and a serious disability has toughened her up quite a bit).

Decepticons respect strength, although they may not see it when it's below the surface.

**VampireArgonian92, Cybernetic Mango, GrimlockX4** : Glad you're liking the story, and appreciate the feedback!

**dixiegurl13** : Thanks! I love surprising readers - or shocking them. Hope the next chapter of "Enemy" is going well.


	7. In which Geri hears a storm

**Chapter 7: In which Geri hears a storm**

"I'm fine, Dad." Geri gripped the receiver. "Where are you?"

There was a click, followed by a the buzz of a dial tone in her ear. "I'm sorry," the woman beside her said, in the brisk way that people spoke when the last thing they were was sorry. "But I warned you not to ask that. I'll take you back to your room now. You can speak to your father again tomorrow."

_What's the point of talking to him when I can't ask where he is or what we're going to do?_ Geri thought. But she knew better than to argue, so she let herself be led back to the room.

The cell, as she thought of it. There was a bed and an attached bathroom, but she was locked in. The woman had introduced herself as Claudine Andrews (so Geri thought of her as Miss Andrews) and said she was the housekeeper, not that Geri believed that. _What kind of kidnappers had a housekeeper?_

Still, at least she was alone in the room, so she pulled off her jacket and slipped the heavy slab of the emergency beacon from under her sweatshirt, shoving it under the mattress. _For all the good this has done,_ she thought. Wildrider's walk-into-the-trap-and-see-where-they-take-you scheme had backfired spectacularly, and they had flown so far that Geri didn't think he had any idea where she was.

For that matter, she didn't have any idea where she was either. Although she had a Braille watch, she hadn't worn it that day, so she didn't know how far away from Santa Clara she was in either hours or miles. After the plane had touched down, one of the men in it had driven her some distance to a building that was at least a few floors tall - she could tell that from the elevator - and she had been handed over to the housekeeper. The only good thing was that she had been allowed to speak to her father.

The door opened. "Come here, please," Miss Andrews said, "There's a doctor to see you."

_A doctor?_ Geri sat down on the bed and wondered just how much more bizarre this would get. "Why do I need a doctor?" she said, struggling to keep her voice calm.

"It's all right, I can examine her here." The voice was a man's, and footsteps came closer. She heard a muffled jingle of metal instruments. "You don't need to be afraid. I'll just make sure you aren't hurt. From what I hear, you've had a rough time of it recently."

_Can't you just leave me alone, even if you won't let me go? _Geri thought but she knew she needed to pick her battles. Getting upset now wouldn't help; she had to keep calm and wait for a moment when she could either call for help or escape.

Besides, if she was mad at anyone, it was with Wildrider for getting her into that mess and at herself for going along with his lunatic idea. More at herself, though, since wanting Wildrider to be level-headed and responsible was like wanting fire to freeze. So she swallowed hard and hoped nothing too bad would happen. She had felt vulnerable often enough in her life, but this was something new.

"Lift your shirt up a little, please. I'd like to check your heartbeat."

Reluctantly Geri obeyed, hoping the only thing she would feel was a stethescope. She heard the man draw his breath in.

"How did you get all those bruises?" he said.

"Escaping from some kidnappers," Geri said. Being thrown around inside Wildrider would do that, though she supposed it was a little safer than being on a road anywhere near him. A little.

The man didn't say anything more as he told her to breathe in and out, then checked her blood pressure. "The last thing we'll need is a blood sample," he said. "It'll hurt a bit, but we should be done soon."

The last thing Geri needed was people whom she didn't trust (and couldn't get away from) sticking needles into her, but she supposed she had no choice about that either. She wasn't afraid of blood tests - she had had one only a few months back, as part of some study meant to help people with the same kind of blindness as hers - but now she wondered if the man would try to inject her with some drug.

_He can do that without bothering to lie about it,_ she thought and pulled up her sleeve. _Might as well get it over with._ After that she got a Band-Aid for her arm, a tube of ointment for the bruises, and lunch on a tray.

She hadn't expected to have any appetite, but after a day on the run with nothing to eat except for potato chips and candy bars – Wildrider's ideas of "human fuel" were straight out of commercials – any hot meal would have tasted good. Still, she felt annoyed when Miss Andrews took the tray away and said it was nice to see someone enjoying their food. _I'm not enjoying this, I'm just hungry._

"How much longer do I have to be here?" she said, trying to make the question sound polite rather than whiny or challenging.

Something soft was set down on the end of the bed. "These clothes should fit you," Miss Andrews said, "and there's a bathrobe as well. Let me know if there's anything else you need. As for how long you have to stay… well, it shouldn't be longer than a month or two."

_A month? Two?_ Geri's throat tightened and even when she managed to open her mouth, all she could say was, "Why?"

"I haven't been told. If you like, I could arrange for a radio and some audiobooks."

_She thinks I'll just sit here and listen to books on tape? Why do I keep meeting crazy people?_ "What about my dad? Is my dad going to be locked up for two months as well?" Geri knew it was equally crazy to worry about anything else when they might both be killed, but for some reason she kept wondering who would feed her hamster and pay all the bills during that time.

"It won't be for long. Just cooperate with us and you'll both be released at the end of that time."

"You'll just let us go?"

"Why shouldn't we? You can't describe us and you don't know where you are." The door's handle turned and Geri realized she would be alone in another moment.

"Wait," she said suddenly. "You said… you said that if I cooperated with you, we'd be released. I'll cooperate. Just tell me what to do."

"All right," Miss Andrews said. "You seem like a sensible girl, so stay here, let us know if there's anything you need and don't cause us any trouble. That's the only cooperation we want." The door closed and the key turned in the lock again.

Geri fisted her hands to stop her fingers trembling. _What does that mean? Why do they want me to stay here for two months?_ Her kidnappers weren't interested in ransom, not if they had a private plane, at least two cars and a safe place to keep her for months. _So what do I have that they want?_ She couldn't think of anything.

She was awake long into the night, though that gave her enough time to search the place. _One advantage of being blind,_ she thought. _Even if they have hidden cameras in here, good luck spying on me in the dark._ With the lights off, she explored the bedroom walls and floor with her hands, trying not to feel discouraged when all she found was a thin crack between the doorjamb and one wall.

On impulse, she fished her library card from her pocket and shoved it into the crack, pushing until the card's edge was nearly flush with the wall. She had once listened to a historical novel where a girl who had been kidnapped hid her jewels in a dungeon. Since Geri had no jewels to hide, the library card would have to do, and she remembered that the girl's idea had solved the mystery of her disappearance when the hero was imprisoned in the same dungeon and found the jewels.

_But wasn't she dead by then? Never mind, it doesn't matter. I'm not her. I'm going to find some way out… out of a locked windowless room. _

_Wait, if there's a bathroom, there's got to be a window in there instead._ In another few minutes she found it, although she had to stand on an upturned laundry hamper to reach it. The window was narrow and she wasn't sure if it would open fully, but at least she had a way to get out now.

_I still need some way to climb down safely. And then what? I don't know where to go or whom I can trust. _Her nerves were stretched to their breaking point and she was exhausted, but she couldn't sleep. It was the first time she had felt utterly alone in the world. No one nearby whom she could talk to or depend on, no one at all.

She went back into the bedroom and leaned against the door - _of course it's still locked, what did you expect_? Pressing against it helped, though; at least she could hear a little of what was happening outside. Voices in the distance were too far away to make out anything they said, but there were two or three of them at least. _Men_. _Security guards, maybe?_ One of them laughed, the sound cut off as a door slammed shut.

Geri let herself slide slowly down and curled up on the floor, listening to the muffled sounds of people moving about - Miss Andrews in the room just next to hers and others on a lower floor. Taps ran and cisterns flushed, but one by one those sounds fell silent as well and there was nothing more for her to hear.

_They're all asleep, whoever they are,_ she thought, _and I should rest too_. The situation she was in seemed to get stranger all the time, so she needed to marshal all her resources to get out of it.

_And I will get out of it_. _By myself._ She couldn't hope for any help from Wildrider - whatever he had got in terms of speed, strength and firepower, he seemed to have missed out on when it came to common sense and attention span. On top of that, he was a Decepticon, so he was probably busy fighting Autobots or blowing up power plants or something. Geri could tell he had picked her up out of the fun of it, rather than through any kind of altruism, so as soon as she started being a problem he would have moved on to his next thrill.

_Not that I was much better,_ she thought just before she finally fell asleep, still huddled beside the door. _Hitching a ride with a talking car, playing Knight Rider instead of just going to the police. Well, look where it got me. Won't make_ that_ mistake again._

_

* * *

_When the people outside spoke, their voices were so quiet that they would not have woken Geri if she had not been sleeping beside the door. She raised her head, wondering for a disoriented moment where she was, before she registered the cramped stiffness in her limbs. _Must've been here for hours_, she thought just as she heard the people just outside. She nearly moved away before she realized that they were talking to each other.

"That was quick," Miss Andrews said.

"I had the tests done privately. Overnight processing." It was the doctor's voice. "And the results are here, if you need them. It's confirmed."

"Then the rest of your payment is downstairs. I'll take you there."

"You won't need any further treatment for the girl?"

"No. We won't harm her and she'll be released as soon as he dies. That can't be more than…" The voice grew quieter as Miss Andrews walked away, fading into silence.

_As soon as he dies? _Geri had never felt so afraid, not even when she had walked away from Wildrider and into the house where strangers waited for her._ Who dies? My father?_ She wanted to hit the door and ask what her family had ever done to deserve that.

_No, stay calm. If they think I'm difficult to control, they'll tie me up or put drugs in the food or something. It will be over soon – I can't spend another night in this cage without going crazy too – but I have to be calm._

She dragged herself into the bathroom and splashed water on her face, but it didn't make much of a difference. "Do you feel ill?" Miss Andrews said some time later, when she came in with breakfast.

"I'm just tired." Geri had been brought up to speak politely, but sometimes that wasn't easy. "The air feels different in here today… sort of stuffy."

"Oh, that's the storm," Miss Andrews said. "There are clouds moving in from the north and the wind is starting to increase. We'll have a thunderstorm tonight."

Geri liked it when people described things to her, even if they sounded like a weather forecast when doing so. If the storm was severe enough, people would be indoors, shades and curtains drawn, and no one would look out to see her escape. _Yes, I'll do it tonight,_ she thought.

With something like that to look forward to, the day passed slowly. She was let out to make a phone call to her father, but by then she had learned not to say anything other than greeting-card sentiments – hi, how are you, I love you – and while she meant all of them, it was frustrating to be prevented from just _talking_. Still, at least he was alive, though she didn't know for how much longer.

Miss Andrews brought her dinner that night and left again. Geri ate as much as she could, although she was so nervous that it all tasted like cardboard. Then she got up on the hamper to open the bathroom window.

It wouldn't move, so Geri folded a towel against the window, holding it in place with one arm. She hit the window as hard as she could with a china soapdish.

Glass broke, though the sound was muffled through the layers of towel. Geri wrapped her hands in washcloths and picked shards out of the frame, grateful that the window was narrow enough that she didn't have a lot of work to do there.

Cool air poured in as she cleared all the broken glass away. Machinery worked in the distance – grinds and clanks alternated with heavy metallic scrapes that seemed muffled through sand or gravel – and Geri hoped that was a good thing. At least there were people nearby, though if they all knew she was supposed to be a prisoner, they might simply return her to her cell if they saw her.

But over the sounds of the machines she heard a flag flapping and the hollow, seashell-to-the-ear wail of wind rushing through alleys. _Storm on the way all right_, she thought and deliberately dropped a large shard of glass from the open window.

The thin splitting sound as it hit the ground took a second too long for her liking; now she knew she was several floors up. She tried not to let that faze her. At least no one had reacted to the glass breaking, so chances were that the bathroom faced on to a secluded part of the property.

She hopped down, broken glass crunching under her sneakers, and went into the bedroom, where she removed the belts from the bathrobe and all the jeans she had been given. Once she had tied all of them together, she stripped the bed and tied the sheet to the makeshift rope as well. Knotting one end of that to the windowframe, she hoped that it was long enough for her to reach the ground - she had no way of knowing.

_Time to go,_ she thought but stood where she was. _I've forgotten something, but what?_ Not clothes; she was wearing her sweatshirt and jeans. Dusty and in need of a good wash though they were, at least they were hers rather than something Miss Andrews had given her to replace her father and her freedom.

_Wildrider's emergency beacon._ It was still under the mattress where she had left it. Geri told herself not to be stupid – the thing was bulky and heavy and obviously not a whole lot of use. And she should have had more sense than to trust a Decepticon.

But when she had been with him, she had known no one could lay a hand on her, and that had been reassuring. With a sigh she gave in, lifted the mattress and slipped the beacon into the back of her sweatshirt; the bruises at the front still hurt too much.

She pulled herself up to the window, twisted, and sat on the ledge with her legs dangling inside the room. Dragging the rope out, she let it uncoil and blotted her hands against her jeans. Despite the coolness of the air, her skin was slick with sweat.

_What if I fall? Too late to worry about that now. Come on, start climbing. _

Her hands were trembling again. Geri clenched them and told herself not to be a coward, but that didn't make a difference. The nothingness beneath her was too frightening. Empty air pressed against her back and whispered in her ears, nearly drowning out the thud of her heartbeat.

_Just climb_, she thought. She had to focus on getting away, calling the police, finding her father before someone killed him. If she just concentrated on that, then she wouldn't think about what would happen if a knot came loose, because she'd never learned all those Girl Scout skills. Or what would happen if she lost her grip--

Thunder rolled out. Geri started, and her whole body began to shiver. She knew then that she couldn't climb down.

_Do something instead of just sitting there!_ _If you can't go down, go up!_

That was something she hadn't thought of before, and the novelty of it made her fear ebb for the moment she needed to try it. She put a foot on the narrow ledge of the window and pushed herself to a standing position, reaching up as she did so. Her fingers groped along the outside of the building and found a ledge that felt concave.

_A gutter_. She clenched her hands tightly on it and found toeholds on the top of the windowframe. The muscles in her arms burned and her bruises throbbed, but with an effort she got her elbows and then her legs over the edge as well. Too shaken to stand just yet, she rolled away from the edge of the roof.

But now anyone who broke into her cell would see the rope and think she had climbed down the side of the building, instead of suspecting she was above them. _Good, now all I have to do is find a safe way off the roof_.

On hands and knees, she searched the roof until she found a maintenance hatch. She got her fingernails under the edge and tugged, but it was locked from the inside. _What now?_ she wondered. She could thump on the hatch and hope someone heard, but what if they just took her back to her cell?

The wind whipped her hair around her face. Geri stumbled to the side of the only shelter she had found, a ventilation unit with a slightly protruding roof, and crouched beneath it. _I could be up here for_ days, she thought, _if no one knows where I am--_

The sky cracked overhead, earsplittingly loud, and the air had a sharp ozone smell. The echoes of the thunderclap died down slowly, and she didn't hear the maintenance hatch open until it creaked.

Geri froze, then held her breath. Footsteps thudded inside the building as someone climbed up – she recognized the slight hollowness of sounds in a stairwell – and then something dropped against the other side of the ventilation unit. A lock snapped and tools clanked together. _Someone's come out to repair something,_ she thought.

_If it's a maintenance worker rather than a security guard, could I ask him for help? Not much of a choice. I can't slip down that hatch without him noticing me._

She felt her way around the ventilation unit, uncertain whether to call out or wait for the new arrival to spot her, though that became a moot point when she tripped over something. She staggered forward and dropped, her outflung hands striking the roof as metal instruments jangled noisily and rolled everywhere. _Great, that was a toolbox._

"What the hell?" a man said.

Geri felt a screwdriver under her leg, and she sat up, closing her fingers around its handle just as the man reached her. He slipped his hands under her elbows and drew her up to her feet. "You all right? Where did you come from?"

_Can't tell him I was being held prisoner here. It'll sound too unbelievable. _"Do you work here?" she said, shoving the screwdriver into her back pocket. She was shivering again, but she told herself that was just because her clothes were damp with sweat and the wind was rushing over her.

"Yeah, but where'd you come from?"

"Could you get me to a phone, please?" Geri said. _Ten seconds with 911, that's all I ask._ "I'm hurt really bad." She pulled up her sweatshirt just enough for him to see the bruises across her stomach where she had slammed repeatedly against Wildrider's seatbelt.

There was a clink of some other tool hitting the roof. "Sure," the man said. "Come on. I'm Mike, by the way."

"My name's Geri. Oh, and I'm blind," Geri remembered to say. "Just tell me how many steps there are."

Cloth rustled as she felt a faint cool brush of air very close to her face, and she guessed Mike had just waved his hand before her eyes. "The guys are never gonna believe this," he said as he took her arm. "Is this some kinda publicity stunt? Are there cameras set up where I can't see 'em?"

"I wish." Geri let him lead her to the hatch and down the steps to a clanking elevator. "Could you tell me what this place is?"

"Yeah, it's the hostel." They stepped inside the elevator, which began to descend.

"What hostel?" Geri said, running her fingers over the elevator buttons out of long practice, though she couldn't feel any corresponding Braille symbols. _I can hardly tell 911 "the hostel" – it's not like saying "the White House"._

"For SLS workers. You know, the construction company?"

A construction company? That explained the machines she had heard, but for the first time, Geri began to wonder if she was on some kind of publicity stunt too. Had someone really intended to keep her on the premises of a construction company for two months? It didn't make any sense.

The elevator opened and she took hold of Mike's sleeve as he stepped out. "Where are we going?"

"Lobby." He led her down a corridor, opened a door and headed down another long passage. "You know, if you're hurt there's a nurse's station just--"

"No, I need a phone. Please." Geri was so much on edge that her hearing felt as though it had been sharpened. People talked in nearby rooms, a water cooler gurgled and another elevator close by opened with a _ding_. After the openness of the roof, the lobby felt as though it was slowly shrinking around her, funneling her into a place where anyone hunting her could close in on her.

A quakelike crash sounded outside, and Geri nearly stumbled as Mike stopped dead. "That wasn't thunder," he said as if to himself.

Geri knew that from the faint vibrations traveling through the floor, the effects of something striking the ground hard enough to make even the foundations of buildings tremble. _I have to get out of here. _"Mike," she said, struggling not to let her voice shake as well, "where's the phone?"

"Oh. Here." He put a receiver into her hand and then moved away. Venetian blinds slapped lightly together and she guessed he was looking out of a window.

Running footsteps made muffled thuds against the floor some distance away, but Geri could tell they were coming closer. She ran her other hand along the cord to locate the phone.

The door at the other end of the passage flew open, and the hurrying footsteps pounded into the lobby – three or four of them, at least, Geri thought as she found the wall-mounted phone. "The police have been informed," a man said, "but in this weather it might take them--"

Both speech and movement stopped, and she knew he had seen her. She punched the three numbers, but it was already too late.

"Mr Maramis?" Mike said.

"Get that phone away from her!"

The phone dropped. Geri turned and ran in the opposite direction, to the elevator she had heard earlier. She thought they might have caught her anyway, except that a fire alarm began to clang and someone screamed outside. That bought her a second or two more, and even through the chaos she was listening for the whir of the elevator.

She threw herself in the direction of that sound and landed on the floor of the elevator, so terrified that she didn't even feel any pain. Whoever was running towards her didn't reach her before the elevator doors closed again, and Geri staggered up, fumbling at the wall until her fingers brushed the buttons. _Press something and _move!_ Which one?_

_The last row's always for a basement or parking lot,_ she thought and hit those buttons. The elevator doors whirred open again a few moments later, but that was too soon. _I'm just a flight of stairs down_, she thought, _and those bastards will be here any minute. _

She stepped out and stood in what she guessed was another passageway, keeping one hand on the wall. The fire alarm was still clanging, but to her left she heard the muffled growl of an engine fading into the distance. _That's an indoor parking lot_. She bolted in that direction until her outstretched hands smacked hard against a door, then let herself out.

Behind her the door to a stairwell slammed open and bounced off the wall, but she heard the rain far ahead. _That's the entrance to the parking lot. If I can reach it--_

Keeping one hand to the wall, she hurried to the left and ran into the car parked there. The impact nearly knocked her down, but she clenched her teeth and ducked around the side of the car. She crouched between its hood and the wall, then crawled towards the entrance, keeping the other parked cars between her and the rest of the lot.

The door to the parking lot flew open and she tried to move faster, ignoring the scrape of the concrete wall against her shoulder and the hard dusty ground under her hands. It sloped upward slightly, so water kept trickling down it, soaking into her jeans. She guessed there were people fanning through the lot and searching for her, though she couldn't hear them over the pounding of her heartbeat.

Her palms felt raw from friction and she was so tired that she thought of hiding under one of the parked cars. _What if someone drives it away, though? And how long can I stay there, if the building really is on fire? _

Maramis yelled an order at someone. Geri cringed reflexively, but she could tell from his voice that she had covered a lot of distance already and moments later her fingers struck the opposite wall. She was at the other end of the parking lot, so if she could just get out without being seen, she had a chance.

Another car was parked between her and the entrance, which was close – she could tell from the downpour of rain. She crept along the car's side, put her hand on one of the rear wheels and pulled herself to her feet. Her body ached, but a jolt of adrenaline hit her at the thought of finally getting out.

She bolted to the entrance, ignoring the shouts from the other side of the parking lot. The edge of a wall hit her shoulder painfully, but she was outside in the next moment, her sneakers splashing through a huge puddle as rain spilled down her face. Thunder crashed overhead and she couldn't hear anything, so she didn't know where to go.

_Just move!_ she thought and ran forward, straight into another man. "I got her, sir!" he shouted as his hand closed around her arm.

Geri grabbed the screwdriver from her back pocket with her free hand and slashed out desperately. She never knew whether she managed to hurt the man or whether the point of the screwdriver only snagged on his clothes. It was torn out of her fingers in the next moment, and the man released her just long enough to hit her across the face. The blow sent her sprawling. The side of her face was numb, and she tasted blood.

"Try that again and I'll beat the crap out of you," the man said, and even through a haze of pain she could tell that he was leaning over to haul her up.

* * *

**Taipan Kiryu** : Appreciate the review! The Protectobots take the kidnapping of a child very seriously – and now it's personal. Expect to see them again. :)

That's one thing I like about Wildrider. He's outnumbered and outgunned and completely out of his depth, because he doesn't know what the kidnappers want or what kind of resources they'll deploy against him. But none of it makes a difference. He jumps in anyway, does his best and has fun along the way.

Almost makes me sorry about all the slag I'm going to put him through.

**herongale**: Thanks! That's part of the fun of writing the Stunticons – making things as rough as possible for them and seeing if they can rise to the challenge. One reason I really want to work on another story that pits them against each other.

**dfastback68**: I've always liked irony and there's quite a bit of that with the Stunticons, such as Breakdown being their scout. So naturally the insane terrorist makes the best companion for a kid on the run, because whatever Wildrider's faults, at least he's not cruel or paranoid or clinically depressed.

And thank you for the compliments on the characterization! The Stunticons are some of the most enjoyable characters I've ever written about, and "The Girl Who Loved Powerglide" was an inspiration for me – along the lines of what not to do. I wanted a heroine who _wasn't_ instantly in love with her Transformer ally and who wouldn't take any bad treatment from him.

I thought the weirdest thing in that episode was the way Powerglide led Astoria around by one hand. They looked like a parent with a small child.

**Cybernetic Mango**: You got it right – a misunderstanding where innocent people finally end up paying the price.

**Fire From Above, No Name Needed** : Thank you. :) Good to hear the action works, and there's more of it to come.

**Tugera**: Thanks for the review! I wish the Protectobots had been given an origin episode – maybe with a moral dilemna, like saving human criminals or injuring a human in their line of duty.

**dixiegurl13**: Glad you enjoyed the action, and looking forward to your next chapter!

I'm fascinated by gestalt teams – the Protectobots and Aerialbots as well as the 'con combiners. There's something fascinating about characters with very disparate personalities (and faults) being compelled to work together. Especially when they come into conflict with each other as well as with outside forces.

**tomorrow4eva** : Thanks for reviewing, and that's a good point. What are the Decepticons going to do even if they answer Wildrider's emergency beacon and he's in real trouble? They can't take him back to the base. Only the other Stunticons are likely to ignore Megatron's order, though no one knows where exactly the other Stunticons are… yet.

And deliberately knocking himself out is not by a long shot the last lunatic thing Wildrider's going to do. Though hopefully the driver might not have heard the noise over the sirens screaming and the crashes as cars fight to get out of Wildrider's way.


	8. In which Wildrider gets a shock

**Chapter 8: In which Wildrider gets a shock**

Wildrider came back online and deeply regretted doing so. Broken glass jabbed into his broken headlights and he barely registered metal components - his grille and the station wagon's trunk, twisted together from the force of the collison - squeal and grate against each other as they came apart.

_Wait a minute, they're moving but my tires aren't._ The thought came as though it had to wade through sludge to reach him. _That means we've stopped._

He activated his optics just as the station wagon was pulled free and footsteps came closer. "I told you that one wasn't on the manifest," a human said. "Must've come off another carrier."

"Yeah, right," someone else said. "Who's going to move wheels like these without locking 'em down?"

Some of the fog was clearing away from Wildrider's mind - being surrounded by humans could do that to any Decepticon. He ignored the hands trying his locked doors as he did a quick self-diagnostic. _Not good._ His engine wasn't as busted up as his radiator, but it had started a leak and didn't look as though it could get him very far under his own power.

He turned his optical sensors up as far as they would go and saw where the humans had him - just outside what looked like a large warehouse. The other cars on the carrier had already been unloaded. One human was checking them over, shining flashlights on to their dashboards to read the VINs, while others pushed the damaged station wagon around the corner of the building. Closer to him, the driver was being chewed out for not noticing him sooner.

_Better not transform here,_ Wildrider thought. _All the humans'll see it and call the 'bots._ What he needed was a secluded location where he could be safely repaired… like wherever they had taken the station wagon, maybe?

The human who had been berating the driver told the others to hurry up and get him out of the way, then came to do it himself. Wildrider popped a lock and let him open the door. Someone else muttered a little suspiciously that that had been locked a second ago, but Wildrider had yet to meet anyone who didn't seize the chance to get into the glossy leather driver's seat of an attractive, abandoned Ferrari. He slammed the door shut as soon as the human was inside.

"Hey, what--"

Wildrider spoke as quietly as he could from the internal speakers. "Got a garage on site?"

"Who the…" The human's voice trailed off as he saw the array of Decepticon technology before him. Outside, someone shouted at him to put the car into neutral, so Wildrider obligingly put himself into neutral, then rolled out of the carrier and down the ramp.

"I said, d'you have a garage on site?" he said. The human managed a jerky little nod. "Cool! Put your hands on the wheel and pretend you're driving me there. Vroom vroom."

Sweat gleamed on the human's face. "Y-you're a Decepticon."

"What gave it away, the Autobot heads on the back seat?"

The human actually turned to look and Wildrider giggled, though he quickly lost the amusement. Driving even a short distance hurt more than he had expected, and the human seemed a little braver by the time they were inside the garage.

"You'd better let me out," he said in a voice that was angry and tentative at the same time, like a very tiny animal baring its teeth. "The guys'll know something's up if I just keep sitting here."

"You know, you're right," Wildrider said, just to see the human start to relax. "So make your friends repair me and then come up with a really good reason why you'll just keep sitting there while they do the job. Or else I'll shoot 'em all and _then_ make you repair me." He remembered how Geri had reacted when she had heard about her father. "And after that I'll find your family and shoot them too."

The human looked at him with more hate than Wildrider had seen from anyone in his life, but the threat worked. After shouting instructions when one red-tinted window rolled down a few inches, the human pretended to fix something that had come loose from the dashboard. Wildrider watched both the work outside and his internal diagnostics intently, ready to start firing at the first sign of sabotage, but nothing happened. The other humans – grumbling under their breaths – replaced his radiator and headlights, repaired his grille and soldered his engine before topping up all the fluids.

The work took hours, and since Wildrider had never been good at either patience or dissimulation, by the end of it he felt sure that the humans had all guessed what he really was. But while he had a hostage, they might think twice about starting a battle. Might.

"I want a can of gas," he said when all the repairs had been completed, unlocking a door as he did so. "And don't put any sugar in it or you'll be the one who drinks it." The more creative the threat, the more responsive the human seemed to be, so Wildrider was sorry to lose his captive audience; he felt sure he could imagine even worse things to try.

The human scrambled out so fast that he tripped over his own feet, making Wildrider laugh again, but he was back in moments with the gas can. He set it on the oil-smeared floor ten feet away before he turned and ran, the rest of the humans following just as fast.

"Aw, that's not nice," Wildrider called after them. "You could've at least put the can inside, and then I wouldn't have to do this." He activated his forcefield and transformed, smashing through the garage roof that was suddenly too low for him.

"Hey, instant skylight!" He giggled and reached for the gas can. It was for emergencies only; he was nowhere near as paranoid as Breakdown, but he didn't trust the humans not to sneak something into the fuel anyway. And there were plenty of gas stations along the way, so he would tap those first.

He stowed the gas can and flicked his thrusters, flying up out of the ruins of the garage; flames set the place alight in the next moment and he sent a few shots into the nearby warehouse for good measure as well. Sort of a "Wildrider was here" signature; plus, the Autobots would soon be galloping to the scene and it wasn't fair to leave them with nothing to do.

His good mood restored by repairs and ruin alike, he touched ground again, transformed and drove off with Metallica's "Fuel" pounding from his speakers. _Now that's taken care of, time to find Geri and run over whoever flew that fragging plane._

He checked the signal from his emergency beacon. It was still active, though to his surprise it was nearly at the edge of its thousand-mile radius. Wildrider hadn't realized he had traveled so far; he was now in New Mexico. What was worse, his internal chronometer confirmed what he could already tell from the sunrise behind him; he had been offline for hours, and the repairs had taken more time than he had expected. It was already the start of the fourth day he had been away from the base. _Better get this show on the road fast._

Not stopping for anything except gas, a trip through a car wash, a smash-and-grab at a Virgin Megastore to pick up some DVDs, more gas, a brief high-speed pursuit of a Corvette that looked like one of the Autobots, and a bit of highway sign enhancement (writing "Decepticons Rule!" with his lasers and signing it "Streetwise") he was back in California late into the afternoon. The sky was so overcast it looked more like evening, though, and sheet lightning flashed in the west.

_Storm on the way,_ Wildrider though, hoping he wouldn't get too muddy. He still looked good after the car wash, his paintjob the same color as the thunderheads with flashes of red like the last of the sunset burning through the clouds. _Too bad Geri can't see me. _

The beacon was less than three hundred miles away now, and for the first time, Wildrider looked at the speed limit signs on the highway. That wasn't to say he obeyed them, but he tried not to go more than thirty miles over the limit. He wouldn't have cared about attracting attention if he had been alone – actually, he would have enjoyed that – but he didn't need any more distractions when he dealt with whoever had taken Geri away.

The last light of the day faded and was gone. Clouds rolled overhead as Wildrider covered the last hundred miles, cutting his speed even further as he saw the facility in the distance.

He spotted the water tower first, since that stood well over a hundred feet tall and was a large sphere with the letters SLS painted on its side. Wildrider slowed down a little more and circled the huge compound so that he could monitor his emergency beacon's signal from different angles. _Yup, she's in there all right._ It was always possible that the humans had found the beacon and separated it from Geri, but he would worry about that if and when it happened.

He completed his circuit of the place, which seemed like a storage area for humans and machines alike. At least the machines were recognizable – cranes and dozers and wrecking balls, though most were yellow with touches of blue, rather than the green-and-purple he was familiar with. _Just machines, then._

Wildrider parked on the side of the road a hundred yards from the main entrance and tried to think. He could simply bash through the high wire fence, or fly over it, and start shooting until the humans gave Geri back, but what if they deactivated her first? He'd pushed his advantage to the maximum when he had a prisoner, so the humans might do the same thing.

_What other choice do I have, though?_ he thought. _Soundwave's midgets might've snuck into the place but I can't do that. Gotta take the risk. Besides, if it was me in there instead, I'd want Geri to smash in and shoot the fragging place up instead of sitting around and wasting time._

With that settled, he felt better already. Thunder roared overhead, but it didn't seem any louder than the blare of Queen's "Stone Cold Crazy" from Wildrider's speakers or the snarl of his engine. He slewed over on to the road that led up to the facility's entrance and sped up.

The humans inside the compound either saw or heard him coming. Most of them fled, but one of them ran up to the wire fence and drew a gun. Wildrider was close enough by then to see that, and a moment later the bullets struck his forcefield. They couldn't hurt him, but he still felt little punches of kinetic energy and that annoyed him.

He floored his accelerator and fired back. His lasers melted a gap in the fence just large enough for him and sent the human screaming to the ground. _Serves the idiot right, _Wildrider thought, _trying to fight a Stunticon with nothing more than a peashooter and a peabrain._ Only thirty yards away, twenty…

In the darkness, sparks flickered from the thick criss-cross wires of the fence – those wires that had broken cleanly rather than melting. _That's weird,_ Wildrider thought, _it's almost as if--_

He looked away from the human, switching to his optical sensors' wide-field function. That was enough for him to see, in his peripheral vision, a yellow sign mounted high on the criss-cross wire and far to his right.

_Warning: Electric Fence._

Wildrider slammed the brakes instinctively, which was a mistake. Since he was traveling far too fast, the sudden clampdown of brakes sent him into a skid as he tried to turn. It lasted for only an instant, which was all any Stunticon took to recover, but that instant took him the last few yards to the fence, tires flinging up sprays of gravel. His hood just missed the fence, but his trunk smashed solidly into the mesh of high-tensile wire.

Twenty thousand volts hit him like a sledgehammer. Wildrider jolted uncontrollably, trying to scream. The surge of electricity paralyzed every motor function and the fence held him in place like a fly in a web. Sparks leaped and hissed from broken wires.

Wildrider tried to reverse or drive forward, but nothing happened. He couldn't transform either; when he tried, his components twitched randomly, scrambled by the electricity still driving into him like waves of needles. Red warnings flickered in his diagnostic queue, only to break up as his vision turned to swimming static. The human who had baited him into the trap was broken as well, lying flat on the other side, but that was the last thing he saw before a grey mist covered everything.

From a long way away he heard someone shout an order to shut off the fence. _Too late now,_ he thought but the electricity was cut off a few moments later. The pain faded to a raw pulse in his circuits. The music had stopped too – _are my speakers damaged?_ he wondered through a daze – so the loudest sound in his audials was the frantic whir of vents trying to cool down systems on the brink of overheating.

Then the humans closed in. Wildrider stayed motionless, not that he was capable of doing much else. If they thought he was still a danger to them, they might shoot out his tires or something, so he had to play deactivated until his systems recovered. _Let's see how soon that'll be_, he thought and looked at his diagnostic queue.

Transformation sequence: offline. Repair time: 1.4 breem. Like all the Stunticons, Wildrider thought in terms of Earth units – he supposed that was one result of being made out of human vehicles and being far more familiar with Earth than with Cybertron – so he did a rapid recalculation. _Just over seven minutes, that's not too bad._

Weapons systems: offline. Repair time: 2.5 breem. _Thirteen minutes. Lucky thirteen. Or is it unlucky? Slag, I can never remember._

Thrusters and anti-gravity: offline. Repair time: 4.2 joor. _A whole day. And I have a funny feeling that the next one's going to take even longer to fix…_

Forcefield: offline. Repair time: n/a. _Oh great, now I'll get flak from the Constructicons for busting that. _He could see why no other Decepticons had forcefields; they were so finicky to repair. Still, at least he could transform in a little while, and he could defeat any number of humans in either mode. All he had to do was buy time until--

A heavy trundling sound vibrated through the ground; metal clanked and a pulley whirled. Wildrider activated his optics just as a human, hands encased in rubber gloves to protect against residual shocks, approached with a huge hook.

A cable ran from the hook to a crane just beyond. _All right, they want to pull me away from the fence. I'm fine with that._ He was less fine with the sharp new jab as the hook drove into his undercarriage just beneath the bumper, but he managed to keep still while imagining what he would do to the humans as soon as he was functional.

The crane's operator moved a lever. The machine – taller by far than Wildrider in his alt-mode – lurched back and reeled in its line at the same time. Wildrider was hauled free of the fence, broken wires scraping him every inch of the way with thin squeals that would have made him cringe if he hadn't been in alt-mode. When he was ten feet away from the fence, the crane stopped and another human came to remove the hook.

Wildrider sighed inwardly with relief. Good, now all he had to do was wait until he could transform again, just a few more minutes.

Another machine lumbered up from his left. It was a forklift, Wildrider realized a moment before its two long metal tines slid under him. He felt them touch his undercarriage just behind the front wheels and before the rear ones, and then the forklift's powerful hydraulics went into effect.

Wildrider weighed just over a ton, but the forklift had been designed to raise four times that weight. He was off the ground in the next moment, suspended on the tines. _At least it's not painful_, he thought, though it made him think of the way humans sometimes refueled, lifting solids on to much tinier forks.

The forklift trundled away, taking Wildrider with it. _Maybe they're just going to throw me out,_ he thought hopefully, but more machines seemed to be working just ahead. He heard a slow, grating metallic crunch and turned his optics in that direction.

Lightning flashed. The burst of whiteness reflected off the other car just yards away. Its paintjob was a darker shade of grey than Wildrider's, though he thought that could be the shadows of the jaws…

…the jaws of the compactor it was in.

Wildrider didn't even have time to recognize the car's make and model before the jaws closed. From above and below they came together inexorably, thousands of pounds of pressure even before the compactor rocked to bring its full force to bear. Metal screamed and buckled as the car's doors folded like paper.

When the thunder rolled overhead, it was so loud that the crack of the car's windshield sounded like a pop. By then the roof was at engine level, and in another second there was no more engine. Headlights splintered, glass fragments spilling like a handful of rain.

Wildrider watched, frozen. The compactor tilted. A foot-thick slab of crushed grey metal slid out and thudded to the ground. The jaws gaped open again, waiting, and the forklift rolled forward with him.

* * *

**Taipan Kiryu**: Hope this was exciting enough. :) The other Stunticons (two of them, anyway) will not exactly be _appearing_ in the story, but you'll hear from them five chapters from now.

Good to hear that you liked the parts from Geri's POV! I knew a blind student when I was in college, and she participated in activities like the rest of us – in fact, she was the treasurer for the residence hall council. She's probably been the inspiration for my tough female characters who are also blind. Geri's the third of those; the others were in medieval fantasies, where things were a bit rougher for them.

By the way, I read the first two chapters of "Till All Are None" last night and am going to finish the rest today. It's rare to see the non-Starscream, non-Skywarp, non-Thundercracker Deceptijets given real screentime in a story. Ramjet and Starscream make a cute pair, too.

**Fire From Above**: That fire alarm didn't set itself off. :) Glad you're enjoying the read.

**tomorrow4eva**: Thanks for the review! I think Astoriawas _someone's_ idea of an assertive female character. You know – head of a corporation, extremely strong, gives Megatron plenty of backtalk, etc. Maybe because she was so bizarrely strong, she didn't get hurt when Powerglide threw her around, not that that makes it right.

That reminds me – in Kidu's fic "Adapt", where the Autobots and Decepticons are turned into humans, Powerglide marries Astoria. I can't help wondering how that relationship turned out, though fortunately the story focused on other characters.

**Cybernetic Mango**: No, the kidnapping is the only thing that actually went according to plan. Every protagonist in this story makes some wrong assumption or the other (which eventually bites them in the aft).

**dixiegurl13**: As you noticed, Geri was intended to be a foil to Wildrider, yin and yang. They won't always get along peacefully, but at least they'll have fun (until the end, anyway).

And thank you for the story recommendation!


	9. In which Wildrider brings the rain

**Chapter 9: In which Wildrider brings the rain**

_Primus, they're going to… _

Wildrider nearly panicked at that moment. He had no leverage off the ground; with nothing for his wheels to grip, he couldn't move, and with his thrusters offline he couldn't fly. And at that angle, he couldn't have brought his guns to bear on either machine even if they had been functioning.

The forklift's tines reached the compactor.

Something flickered before Wildrider's vision. It was tiny and brief as a firefly's glow and any other Decepticon might not have noticed it, but one reason Wildrider was easily distracted was because so many things caught his attention. The flash in his diagnostic queue was no exception.

Transformation sequence: online.

The tines lifted slightly so that Wildrider's wheels would clear the lower jaw of the compactor. He transformed in that moment, falling between the tines and landing hard on the ground. Then he scuttled between the two machines on hands and knees as fast as he could, completely undignified and not caring, as the forklift's operator began yelling for help.

Another machine trundled closer, though in the growing darkness Wildrider couldn't see what it was and he wasn't really looking anyway. He lurched to his feet as the forklift swung ninety degrees to face him, tines rising until they were at the level of his chest. It plowed forward just as Wildrider pulled his scattershot gun from subspace and fired.

He didn't have the time to aim, but at that close range, he could hardly miss. A beam of lasers shot out, fanning rapidly, and punched through the forklift in two dozen places, blowing it apart. Wildrider didn't see – or care – what had happened to its human operator. He was still a little unsteady on his feet but the joy of battle surged through him like fresh energon as he turned to aim at the compactor.

A faint _wssssh_ was the only warning he had as the three-ton wrecking ball swung at him. In the near-darkness, he didn't even see it until it was almost on him. He had one impression of a huge _something_ coming at him fast, and he jerked aside. Too late.

The massive steel weight scraped past his chest and hit his right hand, dislocating two fingers instantly. It also sent his gun flying. Wildrider staggered back, air hissing through his intakes at the new shock of pain, and the wrecking ball struck a small warehouse which all but exploded under the impact. Chunks of concrete sprayed in all directions. Wildrider's armor turned most of those aside, but one jabbed into an ankle joint and he nearly fell.

The ball swung back and Wildrider took a stumbling step away even though he was already out of its path. _But that's not good enough, not when the slagging machine can _move_! I have to be somewhere they can't reach--_

He was expecting the next attack. Not that he could guess what it would be, but he knew the humans weren't going to stop, and he whirled around as he heard the tanklike treads. That was nearly too late as well. The flexible shaft joining the steel shears to their cab was so long that the shears reached him at the same time as the grinding roll of the treads.

The shears opened. They were giant pincers capable of snapping steel bars like twigs, and they would have closed around his neck if his injured ankle hadn't given out as he spun around. He went sprawling and the shears snapped shut where he had been standing. Lightning flashed again overhead, turning the Drag Strip-yellow of the machines to the color of bleached bones.

Wildrider glanced around desperately but his gun was nowhere in sight. He saw the pieces of broken concrete, though, and grabbed one with his good hand. The shears reached for him again and he threw the chunk of concrete at the machine's cab.

Glass shattered, the sound drowned by the thunder, and the human operator dropped out of sight in a red splash. Wildrider hooked an elbow around the shears' shaft as he pulled himself back to his feet – the operator of the wrecking ball was jockeying for a better position, trying to get the ball directly over him to drop it.

That was when a bloodstained hand grabbed at the levers of the shears for support. The entire structure jerked, pulling Wildrider off the ground; the shaft lifted and flexed crazily as he clung to it. He wasn't sure whether the operator was really trying to kill him or was just so badly injured that he didn't know what he was doing, but the result was the same. Abruptly the shaft jolted up until it was nearly vertical, seventy feet into the air, with Wildrider hanging on to it all the while. The cab spun sharply.

Wildrider lost his grip, flew through the air and slammed almost at once into one of the props of the water tower. He grabbed at the structure with his good hand and felt the vibrations in the thick steel support from the impact. The giant storage sphere was thirty feet above his head, looming like a fallen moon.

_That's it_, he thought.

The shears swung back and forth in a groping, disconnected motion and something else was approaching from his other side – a grapple with a giant articulated claw that opened and closed, opened and closed – but it didn't matter. Wildrider wrapped his uninjured leg around the steel prop to anchor himself and reached out as far as he could.

Ten feet out in empty air, fifteen. The prongs of the grapple's claw clashed against each other, but Wildrider's fingers brushed the shaft of the shears. Overstrained servos set off pain sensors but he ignored that as he closed his good hand and drew back, pulling the shears towards him.

The giant pincers scissored open, wide as his own armspan and stronger by far. They were so close that they could have taken his faceplate off, or jabbed an optic out even if they missed. Wildrider dropped first, though, ducking beneath the twin blades as they came together – they were fast by human standards, slow by those of a Cybertronic processor. He was still holding on to the shaft, and he yanked it as far back as he could.

The shears snapped shut around the thick steel prop of the water tower. As fast as he could, nearly losing his balance on the horizontal support that braced the props, Wildrider grabbed one of the pincers and bent it with all his strength. His arm shuddered with the effort, but it worked. The shears lodged in place, sinking deep into the steel that was too thick even for them to snap completely. Then the cab jerked back and the entire water tower trembled.

The grapple's claw snapped at Wildrider, barely missing, and he decided he was tired of playing death-by-Constructicon. Humans had rushed to help the injured machine operator, and he could hear them gathering near the fence, probably planning a counterattack.

_Have to get somewhere secure, then._ The nearest roof was behind him, in the opposite direction from the electrified fence, but it was also thirty feet away – no, closer to forty. With his thrusters still offline, if he missed it at that distance…

_It's either that or sit here and wait to be picked off. Anyone who doesn't want to live on the edge doesn't want to live._

He sprang off the support, launching himself into the air and willing himself to transform. For a cold moment he thought it would fail, that he had been too badly damaged, and then his body folded and transformed. It hurt, but he was braced for that; his engine revved in midair and his front wheels spun as they hit the roof. His rear wheels missed it but the instant of momentum was enough to drag the rest of him on to the roof as well.

_I did it!_ he thought happily. _Maybe I'll try that with the Grand Canyon some day. Now, time to deal with the humans._

His engine racing, he shot forward and pivoted in a turn-on-a-cog maneuver. _Weapons finally online, check… but not fully charged up yet. _A single shot was all he would get for the moment, but one prop of the water tower, on its far side, was already destabilized from the shears yanking at it. Wildrider targeted the other.

His guns swiveled and he fired, a controlled searing of lasers through steel. Slowly and ponderously, the water tower leaned to one side, looming over the fence. People screamed and began to run. The lasers flickered and went out, but Wildrider hardly noticed that; he was watching in fascination as the giant sphere came down in a smooth unstoppable arc, as the water tower collapsed.

"TIMBERRRR!" he yelled.

The sphere hit the electric fence like a meteor and shattered in a gush of spray. Tremors shivered through the building beneath him, but the grapple's forward motion abruptly halted, as did the human cries. _Water plus electricity equals very hot water,_ he thought, and began to giggle. He felt as though he was on the verge of over-energizing, though he knew it was a combination of residual pain, the relief of escaping with his life and the sheer exhilaration of causing so much havoc.

Wildrider had once fought a human crazier than he was – and almost as dangerous – who had called him the Avatar of Chaos and the Black Horse of the Apocalypse. He hadn't understood the second name ("I'm grey, and I'm not a horse!" he had yelled back at the human. "Get your optics checked!") but he liked the first one. The Stunticons got their thrills in different ways, and for Wildrider it was proving that no object was immovable when it met his irresistible force. _What you can create, I can destroy. What you built high, I'll bring low_. He laughed, rocking back and forth on his tires.

The light-headed feeling intensified. _I could leap off from here and come down harder than _that_ thing,_ he thought. _I could leave this whole place a smoking crater in the ground. I could--_

Suddenly he realized how close he had come to detaching from reality again. _No. No, I'm not going to lose it. I'm all right now._ He grasped at the first sane, practical thing to do and checked his diagnostic queue.

Warnings still flashed, but at least his stereo system was in working order. As he selected Megadeth's "Symphony of Destruction", the first raindrop struck his windshield and trickled down the glass, carving a clear trail through a layer of dust.

"Hey, no need for that," Wildrider called up. "There's plenty of water down here already." The sky didn't seem to be listening, though, because it started to dump more rain on him. His vents fell silent as the water helped cool him off, and he remembered that he was supposed to be looking for Geri.

He checked the location of his emergency beacon – it was in a smaller building far to his left, but on the lowest floor. _All right, let's distract them from her then,_ he thought as he turned left and transformed. His scattershot pistol was gone, which annoyed him – he'd liked that gun – but he had something else, the full can of gasoline.

He popped a door and pulled the can out between thumb and forefinger. Several windows on the topmost floor of the building were lighted, and he picked the largest of those. He hefted the can in his good hand, drew his arm back and flung the can out as hard as he could.

Years ago, Breakdown had come up with a game he called "Stunticon skeet shoot". The rules were simple – lob a full can of gas as far out as possible, and try to shoot it before it hit the ground. Points were scored based on how far the can traveled and how many shots it took.

Wildrider liked watching the gasoline explode into flames, like liquid fireworks, and even Motormaster didn't seem to mind them leaving the base to play (in other words, he didn't call them all stupid idiots for wasting their time). Unfortunately Drag Strip won the first shoot and bragged about his performance until they were all sick of him.

After he offered to give them lessons in target practice, Wildrider punched him, but Breakdown fumed quietly and later said that they needed a better strategy. "Hitting Drag Strip only makes him sure that we're jealous of how awesome he is. We've got to really _flatten_ him."

Really flattening him required two months of secret and intensive shooting practice, which made Wildrider feel somewhat flattened too, but it paid off during their next game. The look on Drag Strip's face when they both beat him was worth it, though what really cracked Wildrider up was when Dead End, in his position as scorekeeper, pretended to berate both him and Breakdown. "That was genuinely sub-par, Wildrider. Are you feeling unwell today? And Breakdown, I'm certain you can fling it at least another half-mile!" Drag Strip listened with an expression of utter horror, though he figured out he was the aft of the joke as soon as Wildrider started giggling uncontrollably.

The end result of the competition, though, was that both Wildrider and Breakdown were very good at hitting gas cans in flight, and although it had been a little while since the last skeet shoot, Wildrider felt as confident as always. The can arced towards the largest window as he transformed, zoomed in with his optics and brought his forward-mounted guns to bear on it.

_Have to time it right._ If he hit it outside the building, the rain now coming down in sheets would put out the flames. The can neared the window, turned it to a spiderweb of cracks and smashed through it. Wildrider fired in the next instant.

The can exploded, showering whatever was beyond the window with burning gasoline. Wildrider thought he heard people shouting from inside as he transformed again, climbed down half of the way and leaped the rest. The fence was off, though he guessed the humans would have cut power to it after the water tower collapsed.

Darkness and pelting rain hid the worst of the destruction, though the demolition machines still stood frozen where their operators had abandoned them. Wildrider transformed again, gunned his engine and shot forward, weaving between the wrecking ball and the grapple. His rear wheels flung up a slurry of water thick with blood and dust. He raced across the wide compound towards the small building at the far end, homing in on the signal.

Part of the building's topmost floor was on fire, but Wildrider didn't spare that another look. After the electric fence, he was going to make slagging sure the humans didn't trick him again. So his optical sensors swept his surroundings in night-vision mode, intensity range at maximum, and he saw Geri dart out from the building, smack dab into another human. Wildrider knew it was funny, but for some reason, all he could think was, _That optics thing is gonna get her slagged some day, _as he accelerated to top speed.

He couldn't crash into both of them, but she tried to pull away and the other human hit her. That separated the two of them for the moment that he needed. In the storm and the noise all around, the human didn't see or hear him until it was far too late.

Racing at just over two hundred miles per hour, Wildrider roared forward, tires throwing up waves on either side and splashing Geri from head to foot. The human was far bigger than she was but at that speed and with his much greater mass, Wildrider hardly even felt the impact that picked the human off the ground and hurled him through the air.

He threw the brakes on as the human landed twenty feet away with a heavy, soggy thud. _Touchdown!_ he thought and skidded to a halt just before he could smash into an office block. Water sloshed around his tires. Rather than waste time turning, he threw his transmission into reverse and sped backwards again, just as two more humans rushed out of what looked like a parking lot, heading towards Geri. She had pulled herself up on one knee by then, though, and Wildrider reached her first, splattering her with water for a second time.

He popped a door open and did his best Terminator impression. "Come with me if you want to live."

It occurred to him a moment later that imitating someone else's voice was probably not the smartest thing to do when dealing with a blind human, but his Texas twang must have undercut the impersonation enough to give him away. Geri grabbed the edge of his door and used that to haul herself up. She flung herself inside, sprawling half across his front seat and all the DVDs.

"Get your legs in!" Wildrider didn't know whether she was injured or not, but he didn't have the time to find out and bellowed orders usually motivated the Stunticons. Geri pulled her legs up just enough that the door slamming shut didn't take them off at the ankles, and Wildrider thudded the locks down.

One of the men turned and ran back into the parking lot, but the other one yanked at the handle and then actually kicked the side of the door. And since he wore steel-toed boots, that left a scrape in the red stripe that ran along Wildrider's lower edge.

"Did you just do what I think you did?" Wildrider said. In all his life, he had only ever been kicked by Motormaster, so he did _not_ take that kind of thing from humans.

He flung the door open as hard as he could and it slammed into the human's shins, sending him to the ground. "Okay then, I'll kick you back. Hold on, kiddo!"

He couldn't transform with Geri inside, but that didn't matter; the door swung shut again and he reversed. An engine growled from within the parking lot, headlights flicking on like the eyes of an animal in the darkness, as a massive Ford F-350 started up and lumbered out, heading towards him. Its grille looked as thick as Motormaster's, but it was much slower. Wildrider knew it would never reach the human before he did, though it was trying.

"Aw, that's cute!" he yelled at the Ford as he shot forward. "It's like you want to be a Stunticon when you grow up!" The human with the steel-toed boots tried to scrabble out of the way and a tire rolled over his ankle. Then it rolled back as Wildrider threw his transmission into reverse to get away from the pickup. He could have fired at it, but a better idea leaped into his mind.

Geri struggled up as Wildrider backed away, ignoring the screaming human. He knew more humans were watching from what they probably hoped were safe locations, though one of them took a pot shot at him from behind a dumpster. Geri flinched at the sharp crack of gunfire.

"Don't worry!" Wildrider said, expending his lasers again as he fired back. "My windows are bulletproof." _Though dumpsters aren't laserproof, hah._ "You can make faces at those morons if you like." _And I'd rather have them aiming at the windshield than the tires anyway. _

"No thanks." Geri fastened her seatbelt with trembling fingers, and when she spoke, it sounded as though she was hyperventilating. "We have to question them. Find out what's going on."

"Deactivate my emergency beacon first," Wildrider said, watching as the Ford began to reverse as well. Taking on an electric fence, demolition machines and an oversized pickup was a joyride compared to what would happen if Motormaster went out of his way to track down the distress call. "That switch on the left, push it back all the way. All right, done. Hey, did you miss me?"

"I think someone's trying to kill my father," Geri said. "Can you make them tell me where he is?"

"Which one of 'em would know?" The Ford backed away for the length of the drive that led up to the building, and Wildrider laughed softly. _Whoever's driving that knows this game._

"Miss Andrews," Geri said. "Tell them to bring her down – her room is on the top floor, and I heard her say--"

"The top floor?" Wildrider and the Ford faced each other from a distance of just over two hundred yards now, and his gearshift jolted forward. "The top floor of the place you were in just now?"

"Yes. Why?"

"I kinda set it on fire." Wildrider's engine revved as though it was trying to burst out from under his hood, but he kept the brakes on. Geri looked as though she'd been hit between the eyes with an i-beam, so he continued. "But that's no biggie. Once this lot sees what I'm going to do, they'll tell you anything you want to know."

"Why, what are you going to do?"

"Play chicken with a Ford F-350."

* * *

**Taipan Kiryu** : You made an interesting point – that when the bad guys try to do something heroic, they usually pay a hefty price for it. I think it's much easier for writers to make villains or anti-heroes suffer than to put good, kind and sweet characters through hell (and if this happens, it usually becomes a hurt-comfort thing).

Also agree that the Stunticons preferred Earth to Cybertron. I don't know if you've read the TF Mirrorverse stories, but there's a great one called "Mind of a Menasor", which features the points of view of the mirror-Stunticons, and mirror-Wildrider's is about how they think of Earth as their home. That version of Wildrider is pretty cool too (and the Grand Canyon comment is a reference to him).

**Flarey** and** Cybernetic Mango**: Thanks for reviewing, and don't worry, because Wildrider won't be scrapped by a compactor just yet. I've got something _much_ worse planned for him.

**meteor prime**: Glad you like the story. :) I didn't even know who the Stunticons were until I read The Starhorse's "Blue 42", where Dead End provides some hilarious moments. After that I became interested in all the other Stunticons as well.

**Tugera**: The humans were expecting trouble, so they had some security precautions in place, but they didn't expect Wildrider to helpfully knock himself senseless on the electric fence.

**tomorrow4eva**: I love writing cliffhangers, and there are going to be quite a few more. Thanks for commenting!


	10. In which Wildrider plays chicken

**Chapter 10: In which Wildrider plays chicken**

Wildrider released the brakes and rocketed forward just as the huge pickup did the same. Geri gasped and clung to the inside handle of the door, but she didn't scream or even say anything. Not that Wildrider could have heard anything as he flicked his radio on, selected Deep Purple's "Highway Star" and pushed the volume as high as it would go. He fixed his attention, not on the Ford, but on the road ahead.

Wildrider thought that he might – just might – survive a collision with the Ford, but without a forcefield he wouldn't be driving away from it. He could swerve at the last moment, since he was far more maneuverable than a tank like the F-350, but the whole point of the game Dead End had once called the Kamikaze Art of Chicken was to either force the other vehicle to turn aside or to ram it good and hard. Wildrider was fine with either outcome, but what he really wanted to do was to somehow smash the Ford and live to laugh about it.

_The bigger they are, and all that._

Besides, while he didn't give a lug nut whether or not the humans thought he was a coward, they might not be suitably cowed if he just dodged the Ford or popped its tires out. The humans seemed used to guns, and they probably expected him to shoot them anyway. Some part of him that sounded like Motormaster told him that he had to _break_ them instead, crush all thoughts of opposition, show them once and for all that a Decepticon equaled force so superior that their only choice was complete and immediate obedience.

Doing that without guns or thrusters or forcefield would be… interesting.

The Ford charged towards him, which was good, since Wildrider's plan depended on his competition _not_ being chicken. Though even humans weren't likely to be cowards when controlling something that could turn the finest Italian sports car into so much scrap metal.

Wildrider went to a hundred and fifty miles per hour, then two hundred, watching the road ahead where rippling water reflected broken glimmery reflections from headlights and the fire. The Ford put on one last burst of acceleration, engine rumbling like an echo of thunder. It was huge and bulky and unstoppable, a steel juggernaut that outstripped him in height and weighed nine times what he did. And it was close now, so close that it would smash into him in the next few seconds.

_There_. _Humans always have those near parking lots--_

"Yee_-haaaaaa_!" Wildrider screamed, and deliberately hit the speed bump. At his velocity, that launched him off the ground and sent him sailing through the air. He landed on the Ford, his rear tires striking the pickup's windshield so hard that glass crunched. The force of the collision shuddered violently through him, as if his shock absorbers didn't even exist.

The effect on the Ford was worse, though. The huge pickup careened out of control with Wildrider on top of it, his undercarriage to its roof. Even with his rear wheels snagged in the ruined windshield and his front wheels scrabbling for purchase on its roof rack, he felt himself start to slip. Before he could fall off, though, the Ford lurched to one side and rammed hood-first into a building.

Shards of glass plinked against metal and bricks crumbled from the impact, but the world finally stopped moving. Wildrider pulled air in through his intakes and stayed still, enduring the aftershocks of the impact until they subsided to a raw dull ache in his chassis and struts. Much as he'd enjoyed every moment of that game, he couldn't help thinking that a few hours of recharge would feel pretty good too. His radio was still playing, but he slid the volume back down to what was quiet for him.

"Geri, you okay?" he said.

Geri's shoulders were hunched as if to present a smaller target, and her hands clamped over her face. She moved them just enough that her voice wasn't muffled. "Wildrider?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are we at an angle?"

"'Cause we're on top of that F-350."

"Were you playing chicken or leapfrog?" Geri sagged back against the seat, hands dropping, and shook her head. "I can't believe we're still alive."

"You didn't trust me?" Wildrider dropped his voice to a Darth Vader-esque bass. "I find your lack of faith disturbing."

"Funny. Could we get back down to the ground, please? If you're not hurt, that is." She was still breathing hard, and she touched the door and dashboard as if to assure herself that they was still there.

Wildrider checked his diagnostics. He wasn't in the greatest shape, but at least nothing had torn loose and his engine was still running, whereas the Ford's was now bubbling oil into the rainwater. "I'll be fine. Let's blow this popsicle stand." He goosed the accelerator just enough to drag his tires free of the Ford's windshield.

Geri leaned forward. "We have to question those people first!"

"Oh, right." Wildrider drove over the pickup's roof and bounced back down to the ground, wincing as he did so; he had a feeling his suspension would need to be replaced once he was back in the Decepticon base. _Hard part's over, though_, he thought as he flicked his hi-beams on to pick out the humans who had been watching. They cringed out of sight.

"C'mon, get out here before I drag you out!" he yelled. One by one, the humans obeyed, all of them with their hands up. "Now tell me who gave the orders to kidnap her!" A few of the humans glanced sideways at each other, but no one replied.

"Maramis," Geri said.

"Your arm is what?"

"No, that's one of them, Mr. Maramis. He recognized me when he saw me, I know he did. The others are just construction workers – they wouldn't have been let in on it--"

"Which one of you is called Maramis?" Wildrider snapped.

Some of the humans turned their heads to look at one of their number, a few just glanced out of the corners of their eyes as if afraid any other movement would draw Wildrider's attention and one or two of them pointed, though they tried to do that as subtly as possible. Wildrider looked with interest in that direction. Maramis was one of the darker-skinned humans, though other than that Wildrider couldn't have told him apart from any of them.

"You're Maramis?" he said, training both headlights on the human, who nodded jerkily. "Down on your knees, then!" He didn't need to have any human actually kneel before him, but it was a nice dramatic touch. Maramis dropped as if unable to remain standing any longer.

"Okay," Wildrider said to the other humans, "the rest of you can scram." The humans scrammed at speed, though two of them crept to the F-350, glancing back over their shoulders as if afraid he would try to stop them. Wildrider didn't mind them helping the pickup's operator, though; that human had guts, though those were probably smeared across the Ford's steering wheel at the moment.

With the others gone, Maramis was left on his knees in the glare of the hi-beams, shivering as the rain beat down on him. _Finally_, Wildrider thought, _we'll get some answers._

"What's your function here?" he said.

Maramis licked his lips. "I'm the superintendent."

Geri pushed her hair wearily back from her face when Wildrider repeated that to her – with the windows rolled up and the rain still pelting down, she couldn't hear. "He wouldn't have started any of this. Ask him who he takes his orders from."

"Mr Stover," Maramis all but whispered. "One of the owners."

Not for the first time, Wildrider wished human designations meant something. He had sometimes tried to tell human functions or appearances from their names, but it had never worked. "Do you know that guy?" he said to Geri, but she shook her head, looking confused.

_And that's another difference between us and them,_ Wildrider thought. _If an Autobot attacked me, I'd know who he was and why he was doing it._ Human problems were convoluted, compared to the clear direct way of life he was used to, and the answers he was getting now only seemed to lead to more questions. He asked why Stover, whoever he was, had gone to such lengths to kidnap Geri, but Maramis said he didn't know and then began pleading for his life.

"Oh, shut up," Wildrider said. _As if it would've made any difference if I'd begged them not to pulverize me_. "Where's this Stover?"

"In – in Colorado."

_Guess he doesn't want to be here actually getting his hands dirty_. "And where's her father?"

"He's there too."

"Cool." Wildrider had wondered if Geri's father was stashed somewhere else, like an interstate scavenger hunt, but it looked as though he could take care of two problems at the same time. "Where in Colorado?"

"I – I guess Mr Stover's ranch. Near Colorado Springs."

Wildrider perked up; a ranch sounded fun, especially if he got to smash through barbed-wire fences and stampede herds of horses. "Shall we take him with us?" he said to Geri. He didn't want to drive halfway across the country only to find out that he had been lied to, and if he did, he wanted to be able to take it out on whoever was responsible.

She drew back a little. "What, in here?"

"Don't be a low-watt. In the trunk."

"Won't he suffocate? Or be injured when you, uh, drive? There's not much point in taking him all the way to Colorado if he dies before we get there and we have no way of knowing."

Wildrider wouldn't have been swayed by sentimentality or pleas for pity, but the idea of carrying a smelly, decaying corpse in his trunk was different, so he settled for shooting Maramis in the right leg (since he was Menasor's left leg, he always felt vaguely uncomfortable about targeting that limb). The injury would keep the human occupied, unable to rally the troops and give chase.

Seconds later he drove out of the compound, rain streaks flying across his windshield as his speed increased. "We'll grab some fuel and recharge," he said, "and we'll be in Colorado by afternoon tomorrow."

Geri said nothing. Wildrider trained his internal sensors on her and realized for the first time how battered she was - one side of her face was red and swollen, making the hollows around her eyes look even darker in comparison. Her clothes were dirty, frayed and soaking wet. _Have to get the seat covers replaced too_, he thought, _but I can do that when I'm back home._

"Hey, you'd better change out of those," he said. "There's supplies in the back seat. Want me to turn the heat on so you dry quicker?"

Geri looked up and there was an odd, preoccupied expression on her face. "Wildrider," she said, "thank you for getting me out of there. I'm grateful for everything you've done."

The careful courtesy gave Wildrider an uneasy feeling; he was suddenly sure that he didn't want to hear what was coming next. He slid the volume up again, and the opening chords of AC/DC's "Problem Child" filled his passenger compartment.

Geri ignored the music other than raising her voice to be heard. "But whatever is going on here, we can't handle it on our own. Would you let me out at the nearest police station, please?"

* * *

**Fire From Above**: Glad you liked Wildrider's last-minute step back from the edge, though he may not be so lucky later…

**Taipan Kiryu**: Thanks for the detailed review and for your comments on the action! Sorry about all the technical words – I have a habit of doing that with my stories, especially with scientific terms – so let me know if it ever gets to the point where it detracts from the readability.

Speaking of action, this is what the Stunticons are best at. They were created as fighters, and they're never more resourceful and relentless than when their backs are to the wall. That's what's great about Wildrider – as you said, he never feels sorry for himself and never mopes about his condition or the unfairness of life. He does his best with what Megatron and Vector Sigma gave him. I'm very happy that he's holding my readers' attention so well despite his near 100% inability to figure out what the humans are up to. ;)

**tomorrow4eva**: You're right, it is like James Bond, right down to Wildrider trying to be suave and cool as he splatters Geri with water or scares her half to death by playing chicken. That's part of his charm, though – the fact that there's never a dull moment with him around. Geri is so self-possessed and reserved that none of the other Stunticons could bring her out of her shell and distract her from her situation, but Wildrider manages that easily.

**Cybernetic Mango**: The Protectobots probably do get a chance to "rescue" Geri, though I'm not sure about this. I still have to write the final showdown where Wildrider confronts the person who's behind all this, and the 'bots confront Wildrider (and everything goes downhill from there).

**Flarey**: Yes, Wildrider is insane – and doesn't care whether his enemies are larger than him or outnumber him. Thanks for confirming that the F-350 really is huge, by the way. I looked it up on the Internet and it sounded like a suitable Goliath for Wildrider to take on.

**meteor prime**: Of course you get a reply. I like replying to reviewers. :) And I love stories where humans take on 'cons without needing either Autobot support or too much fictional technology. Humans are tough and resourceful too, and they were just unlucky here – if they'd shoved Wildrider into the compactor even half a minute faster, he'd have been paper clips by now.

"Strength he has, brains not so much", indeed. Part of the fun of writing this story has been to see Wildrider try to think his way through a problem, usually coming up with something wrong or bizarre. Or making what turns out to be a spectacularly wrong choice. Poor 'con gets called on it later, though.

Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting!


	11. In which Geri puts her foot down

**Chapter 11: In which Geri puts her foot down**

The rain was turning into a drizzle, but rivulets of water still trickled across the surface of the highway, and Wildrider's headlights reflected off an iridescent film of oil or gasoline floating off their surface. He drove over that deliberately, just to feel the friction turn suddenly to slickness, the road becoming black ice.

He compensated automatically, leaning into the skid as it carried him off the road and over the hard shoulder. It was fun to hit spills when police cars were chasing him, to lure them onto the slick surfaces as well. There was always that moment of panic when they realized they were out of control, which was the perfect opportunity for him to turn his own skid into a one-eighty spin and bring his guns to bear on them.

Now, though, there was no one around and even riding the ice didn't improve his mood. He came to a stop well off the side of the road and switched his headlights off, though he didn't bother to turn the music down.

"Why do we need to go to a cop stop?" He heard an undertone of tense suspicion in his voice that reminded him of Breakdown. "If you want to tell them what's happened, use a pay phone."

Geri put her elbows on her knees, and pressed her knuckles against her eyes. "I should have gone to the police from the start," she said without looking up, and Wildrider had to turn the volume down to hear her. "But it's not too late. They can question this Mr Stover, whoever he is, and find my dad. And they can figure out what the heck is going on, because we're out of our depths here."

Wildrider couldn't really argue with that. "Okay, then call 'em and we'll let 'em handle it. But we'll watch from close by so we can jump in when they screw things up."

Geri raised her head. "I think we're more likely to screw things up. Could we please leave this to people who are professionals?"

_The moment I take her to the cops, it'll be over. They'll never let her stay with me, even if it's just for a couple of days more_. "They won't take you seriously. C'mon, think about it! This Stover is rich – he's got a plane, a ranch and a bunch of thugs working for him. You think the police are going to believe you over him?"

Geri straightened up. "You heard what Mr Maramis said."

"Yeah, I heard what he said when he had a Stunticon's guns trained on him." Wildrider thought of human legal rituals – thank Primus he'd watched so many movies. "You think he'll talk when he's safe with the cops and can get a lawyer to look out for him?"

Geri looked uncertain, and Wildrider quickly pressed his advantage. "Face it, kiddo, we got no evidence the cops'll believe. Slag, they'd think I popped a cerebro-shell in you. We're better off if you stay with me."

"Is that right?" The unsure expression vanished. "Wildrider, I got locked up in there because of your idea."

_Frag, I was hoping she'd forgotten about that_. "But I got you out."

"But if I had gone to the police in the first place, you wouldn't have needed to," Geri said. "Look, I'm too tired for this and I don't know why we're arguing about it anyway. You don't have to go to any more trouble for me. You can leave me at the police station and then go back to the other Decepticons. I'm sure they must miss you by now."

For all his mental problems, Wildrider was the most emotionally stable of the Stunticons. Unlike Motormaster, he wasn't bad-tempered; unlike Dead End, he was never depressed; unlike Drag Strip, he didn't need to excel at everything and make sure everyone knew when he succeeded. Which was good, since as far as Wildrider was concerned, it was difficult enough being a headcase without being a snippy, mopey, rageaholic headcase.

Dead End had once told him that terrorists were usually brooding, grudge-against-the-world types, but Wildrider figured that the way Vector Sigma had made him, he could cause just as much trouble for the opposition and still enjoy life. _Besides, _someone _in the team has to be cheerful_, he'd thought, _and it sure as slag won't be you or Motormaster_. Even when he was alone or it was quiet, he became nervous and twitchy rather than angry; it took a lot for him to lose his temper.

He was losing it now, though. After he had knocked himself out escaping the Protectobots, rammed into an electric fence and nearly been squashed flat by demolition machines, he was still driving, still pushing himself past the point of exhaustion. _And she wants to just get out? Go off with the cops and leave me? That's it, game over, end of the road? _

_No way. _

_No. Fragging. Way. _

"No," he said and started his engine again.

Geri sighed. "All right, if you don't want to go anywhere near a police station, that's fine. Would you let me out at a pay phone, then?"

"Forget it." Wildrider slammed the accelerator and wrenched the steering wheel to the left, tires squealing as he slewed on to the highway again. He watched Geri through the internal sensors to see how she would react, but she just looked tense and wary, like most humans when they were around him.

Somehow, that didn't make him feel any better.

"Are you going to let me out at all?" Geri said. Her voice was low and cautious.

"If I feel like it." Wildrider sped up – that always improved his state of mind – and thought of everything he had been told about the superiority of Decepticons over all other forms of life, especially organic ones. Maybe he should have made that clear at the start, asserted control right away. _Still, it's not too late_. "You're just a human, so you'll do as I say. Get it?"

"Got it," Geri said, and released the catch of her seatbelt.

"Hey, put that back on!" Wildrider said. At the speed he was going, she would never survive a collision or even a sudden stop without the seatbelt.

Without answering, Geri leaned back in her seat. She stretched her legs out and crossed her ankles as if her sneakers weren't dripping water that saturated the floor mats.

"Didn't you hear me?" Wildrider dialed the radio's volume down even further to make sure she did. "Put your seatbelt on before you hit the windshield! The glass won't break, but your face will."

Geri turned as if looking out of the window, absorbed in the view. Wildrider tried to refasten the seatbelt with a mental command, which didn't work – and which had never needed to work before, since no one had ever ridden in him without all but nailing themselves to the seat. He released the accelerator, then wondered why the frag he was reducing his speed because of a human's stubbornness, then imagined what would happen if he collided with something. The back-and-forth ruined what was left of his emotional equilibrium and he yelled at the top of his vocalizer.

"_Put the slagging seatbelt on_!"

Geri blinked, raised a hand and pressed a fingertip against her ear. Then she closed her eyes and settled down against the back of the seat as if about to go into recharge.

Wildrider took the first exit ramp, hardly aware of where he was going, and burned speed along an access road until he came to a turn. He veered into it just sharply enough to send Geri thudding shoulder-first into the side of the door. She bit her lip and muscles tightened in her face, but she didn't make a sound, much less put her seatbelt on.

Wildrider felt suddenly tired, ready to sag down on his slowing tires. He'd fought too many enemies that night; taking Geri on as well was the last straw. Especially since he didn't know how to deal with her. He could always transform, drag her out and shake her until her teeth rattled in her head, but he had a feeling that that still wouldn't make her wear the seatbelt, much less talk to him afterwards.

And he didn't really want to hurt her, though he wouldn't have minded at all if she felt as frustrated and furious as he did. He came to a stop well off the road, tires sinking into a smear of mud, and turned off both his engine and radio. The rain had stopped entirely, and the clouds began to drift out of the sky to… _to wherever clouds go_, Wildrider thought. He had never given that matter much consideration.

He tore his attention away from the clouds and looked back at Geri. Her breathing was audible - with the radio off, he could tell - and she rubbed her knuckles beneath her eyes every now and then, but she still wasn't speaking to him. _Stubborn little glitch_, he thought, _as if I didn't have enough problems already. And I have no idea how to fix this one._

"You're being really unfair," he said.

"_I'm_ being unfair?" Geri's voice was hoarse and she sniffled, then wiped her face with a sleeve that was already soaked through. Wildrider felt relieved, though; at least he'd finally got a response. "Th-that's rich, coming from someone who's keeping me a prisoner."

"I'm not keeping you a--"

"Yes, you are. You won't let me out. If I won't take that kind of thing from – from other humans, why should I take it from you?"

Wildrider almost replied, _Because I'm stronger than any number of humans_, before it occurred to him that he hadn't been able to force one fragging girl to put one fragging seatbelt on. He huffed air through his vents. "Because if you don't take it from me, someone else'll slag you in no time. No, forget someone else – if I hadn't stopped, you'd be dripping off the dashboard right now."

"So?" Geri said.

Wildrider gave her a careful look to make sure he was speaking to a small bedraggled human, rather than to a shiny dark-red Porsche. "You'd really rather get scrapped than do as I say?"

Geri sighed, and for the first time since he had stopped, she sounded tired rather than defiant. "Wildrider, this isn't about doing what you say. I don't mind that, honestly. But I don't like being in a cage, even a cage with wheels, and I'd rather be – be scrapped than kept in one." She hesitated. "Wouldn't you?"

Wildrider thought of the time he'd been captured by the Autobots and thrown in their brig. He'd hated hated hated it, and only the presence of the other Stunticons had made it at all bearable. "I guess," he said reluctantly. "But what if those guys find out that you went to the cops?"

"The cops will already be investigating what happened back home, and if my dad's in Colorado, that means he was taken across state lines. So the FBI can get involved too, and I can help them find my dad sooner. Don't you think so?"

_Guess you've got it all worked out._ Wildrider restarted his engine and his tires kicked themselves free of the mud, spinning hard. "Yeah," he said as he drove back on to the access road, heading back the same way he had come. _Put that way, you don't need me._

"Just so you know…" Geri refastened the seatbelt as if too preoccupied to notice what she was doing, rather than capitulating her side of the battle. Her eyes were reddened, but she spoke with a quiet seriousness. "I've been thinking about this for some time. It's not a spur-of-the-moment thing. When I thought I was trapped there with no one to help me, I made up my mind that I'd go to the police once I got out."

"But you knew I'd come to get you out, didn't you?" Wildrider said, checking his maps to find the nearest city. He sped up to take the exit ramp that led back up to the highway, past a taxicab that nearly plunged off the ramp to get out of his way. "I came right away."

"After stopping to pick up some computer games," Geri said, patting the boxes piled on the seat around her. "Or are these DVDs? The boxes are the same shape."

_Good thing she _doesn't _have optics_, Wildrider thought, _she's enough trouble already._ He decided to ignore what she had just said. "You didn't think I'd get you out?"

"Well… no," Geri said. "I mean, I know you like to have fun and not take things too seriously, so I thought you were done with me. Anyway, it doesn't matter--"

"Whoa whoa whoa!" _Talk about adding insult to injury_. "Back that up! You thought I'd lose you and just leave?"

Geri moved one shoulder in a small shrug. "I thought that was what Decepticons did. Guess I was wrong?" she added hastily.

"Fragging think so?" Wildrider said. Decepticons never let anyone steal from them. "Anyway, I'm a Stunticon."

"What does that mean?"

Wildrider had never before really thought about what that meant, since being a Stunticon was something he took for granted. It meant he was part of an elite squad of strikers and destroyers who owned the roads, smashed anyone who thought otherwise and answered to Megatron alone (if they weren't too busy when he summoned them).

There's more to it than that, though, he thought and reached out to the other parts of his mind, of himself, that would know better.

It meant being the best, according to Drag Strip.

It meant crushing anything in the way, according to Motormaster, including the gang of weaklings and idiots under his command if they stepped out of line.

It meant being doomed from the moment of their creation, according to Dead End, since they were so fundamentally flawed.

It meant never being alone, according to Breakdown, because when trouble came, the Stunticons shored up each other's weaknesses and closed ranks.

_And that's it_, he thought. Geri could be annoying and he couldn't have kept her for much longer, even without her habit of asking to leave. But she had still been part of _his_ team, under _his_ command. _No one messes with what's yours_, said the part of him that sounded like Motormaster.

He couldn't have explained any of that to another 'con who wasn't part of a gestalt, and one who was wouldn't have needed explanations, so telling a human was out of the question. "Doesn't matter now," he said as he roared down the I-49, heading towards the city of Sutter Creek just forty miles away. The clouds had gone. The night sky was clear, though the illuminated signs along the highway and the neon lights of nearby buildings were closer and far brighter than the stars.

Geri fidgeted with the ties of a sweatshirt that was no longer white. "I guess you'll go back to the Decepticons now?" she said after a moment.

"Nope." Wildrider wondered what was the point of her showing the least interest in his life if she wanted him to hand her over to the other humans and then go off by himself. _Humans are so weird_. "Can't do that for another couple of days."

"Why not?"

"Cause I got kicked out." He had a feeling that most Decepticons would not have admitted that, especially not to a human, but it wasn't like he had anything left to lose. "I was racing and knocked down a door, so I got a six-day timeout."

"Just for knocking down a door?" Geri said. "Geez, that's rough. Good thing no one was hurt, though – who knows how long you'd have been kept out then?"

"Uh, yeah. Exactly." Wildrider decided not to mention that Skywarp had been behind the door at the time.

"So that's why…" She hesitated. "I wondered how you had the time to stay with me, and why you didn't have to check in with your superiors or anything."

As far as Wildrider was concerned, he had only two superiors – Megatron and Motormaster. Since the one didn't want to see him around the base and the other was probably going to pound him into the floor in the very near future, it had been a relief not to speak to either of them.

"There's no way for them to find out that you helped me, is there?" Geri said, twisting her fingers together. "I mean, if you got kicked out of your home for just knocking down a door…"

Wildrider sped into the city at just over a hundred and fifty miles an hour, blasting apart a sign about the Sutter Gold Mine when he remembered at the last moment that he no longer had a working forcefield and couldn't ram anything. "They'll find out, but I don't care."

"Why not?"

A siren started up and a police car pulled out from a cross street, so Wildrider slowed down just enough to shout, "Hey, you! Which way to the station?" The only reply he got was a yelled command to stop, so he sped up again.

_Why do they have "To Serve" painted on their sides when they won't even answer a question, let alone obey you?_ he thought as he pulled up his maps and zoomed in. _Maybe it's to trick criminals into a false sense of security_. He hurtled on at the same breakneck pace, the black-and-white struggling to keep up.

Geri had rested an elbow on the back of her seat and twisted around to listen to the exchange, but she turned back as he accelerated. "Why not?" she said again. "Why was it so important for you to rescue me?"

"Why the frag are you asking all these questions?" Wildrider took a sharp turn, nearly skidding on two wheels, and headed for the police station at the end of the road. "What does it matter?"

"I guess it doesn't," Geri said. "I'm sure you did it because you're naturally kind and generous and go out of your way to help--"

"Oh, cut the slag. If I hadn't done it, I'd have gone crazier." Wildrider tried to explain as he hurtled into the parking lot of the police station. "Everyone else is the brakes. I'm the accelerator. If all you've got is the brakes, you won't be going anywhere, but if all you've got is the accelerator--" He drove in a circle around an island in the parking lot as he hit his horn, giving off a continuous blare that nearly drowned out the black-and-white driving up.

"You keep going faster until you crash?" Geri said, then turned her head as a dog began barking.

"Yup. Hey, they got a K-9 unit!" Wildrider was almost amused. Humans really were obsessed with small furry animals, and he would have liked to see what that could do against a Stunticon.

"Bite me!" he yelled, and did another rotation of the island as he waited for more cops to arrive – considering how many people seemed to want Geri kidnapped, it would be a good idea to have an entire precinct present when he handed her over. Just circling the island was getting boring, but the wet surface of the parking lot gave him an idea.

His steering wheel spun in one direction as far as it could go, and he shifted into reverse. More police officers ran out of the station, guns drawn, and took cover behind parked cars as Wildrider floored the accelerator and lurched back. His front wheels lost their grip, sliding across the wet asphalt, so that his front half spun around his rear wheels.

Geri grabbed at the door handle as she began to slide too, so Wildrider threw his steering wheel into the other direction, spinning it so fast that it was a blur. He was starting to think that a giant chunk of Styrofoam, with a human-shaped cavity cut in it, would be better for his passengers than just a seatbelt.

The front wheels rolled sharply to the other side, then made a three-hundred-degree rotation around Wildrider's near-stationary rear wheels. There was a stench of hot rubber in the air.

"What are you doing now?" Geri's voice was tense and breathless.

"Donuts. I heard cops like those." From the orders bellowed at him through a bullhorn, though, the police seemed less than appreciative, and Wildrider thought that they would soon be exchanging fire.

_The reception committee's as large as it's gonna get_, he decided, and came to a stop. One of his doors opened. "There you go," he said, trying to sound as cheerful as always.

"Let the girl out!" the deputy with the bullhorn shouted at him.

"What does it look like I'm doing, slaghead?" Wildrider screamed back, then spoke in a slightly less strident tone. "Go on, kiddo. They're waiting."

Geri was still holding on to both the door and the edge of the seat as if she couldn't risk letting go. "Would you…" She released her seatbelt and swallowed hard. "Would you be even crazier than this without someone around to, uh…"

"To keep me sane?" Wildrider shifted on his tires in a vehicular shrug. "I guess. It's started to happen twice so far, but it's gotten better. It feels weird, like I'm driving off the ground and floating away. Hey, maybe I'd go wherever the clouds go."

Geri swung her legs down off the seat. Wildrider watched the cops and thought he might have smirked if he had been in robot mode; it was fun seeing them unable to shoot him. Though that inability would last for all of a few more moments, and for some reason he didn't feel much like smiling.

The bullhorn shouted instructions at Geri to get out and walk towards the parked cars, but she didn't seem to hear them. "What'll happen if you lose it completely?" she said.

"And do something dumb?" Wildrider wasn't used to thinking about the future; that was what the other Stunticons were for. "I dunno. Maybe the Autobots will catch up with me and deactivate me. Maybe Motormaster will catch up with me and beat the slag out of me."

He tried to recapture some of his usual good spirits; he'd sounded entirely too much like Dead End for a moment there. "Maybe no one'll ever catch up with me again. Acceleration without brakes equals escape velocity." _Just keep driving, keep driving, keep driving, no purpose, no stopping, no end in sight, nothing but the empty road ahead and the empty sky above--_

Geri lifted her legs back in. "Let's go," she said.

"Huh?"

"I'll stay with you." She swung the door shut. "I don't want you to be hurt, not after you saved my life."

An unexpected warmth crept through Wildrider's circuits from the laser-core outwards, but he had as much pride as the other Stunticons. "I don't need _you_ to look after _me_."

"I know," Geri said, refastening her seatbelt, "but I thought maybe you wouldn't mind my sticking around. Just until we get to Colorado."

"Well…" Wildrider locked the door. "Since I was heading there anyway…"

"And maybe you could show me some more of your cool moves along the way?"

"That goes without saying, kiddo." Wildrider started to head out. "You seriously need to have more fun."

"Good thing I bumped into you, then," Geri said. "Um, would you mind informing the police?"

That was probably a good idea, Wildrider decided. The cops seemed a little confused, because they were still yelling orders at him and the black-and-white that had chased him there was blocking the way out. "Change of plan, guys, the lady's come to her senses!" he shouted as he accelerated, aiming his lasers at the police car. "She's sticking with me."

Geri winced, though Wildrider wasn't sure whether it was at the sound of the explosion or the way he weaved from side to side in a hard zigzag just to make sure any bullets fired at him would miss his tires. "Come to my senses?" she said as he plowed between chunks of smoking wreckage and drove out of the parking lot. "This has to be the craziest thing I've ever done."

"Nah, that would be taking the seatbelt off." Wildrider didn't intend to let her forget that one.

"Not really." Geri smiled, very slightly. "I was sure you wouldn't let me get hurt. Though it wasn't a safe thing to do, I'll give you that." She ran her hand over the dashboard, feeling carefully. "You don't even have airbags, do you?"

"I think I have barf bags. Check the glove compartment."

* * *

**tomorrow4eva** : Glad you like Geri's sensible attitude. I wanted her to be the complete opposite of Wildrider – ultra-rational to make up for his frequent fits of halfwittery. And if you felt even a little bit sorry for him, this story did what I wanted it to do. Yay Wildrider. He might be a dangerous giant robot, but he's a _lonely_ dangerous giant robot.

**dixiegurl13**: Thanks for the review! Wildrider would watch anything with fast cars or robots in it, but Breakdown prefers shows dealing with normal human lives ("What's the point of watching cars or robots when we're both?") and Dead End likes depressing films where everyone dies, like Shakespearan tragedies ("What's the point of watching anything else?")

**Fire From Above**: Hope you liked the showdown! Wildrider's great at coming up with ways to beat other machines, but not so good at basic psychology.

**meteor prime**: The Rubik's cube suggestion is… interesting. Makes me wonder how the different Stunticons would solve that.

I'm not familiar with most of Wildrider's music choices, because hard rock and heavy metal are not my fortes. But it's been fun trying to find songs that fit with whatever's happening in the story, and if they work for the readers I know I'm on track.

Though you'll have to wait for a few more chapters to find out who's behind all this…

**Cybernetic Mango, Dragon260**: Thanks for the reviews!

**Taipan Kiryu**: I'm glad you're enjoying the story. As you said, Wildrider will never be a conventional hero, but he's a lot more fun to write about and he's turned out to be surprisingly multifaceted.

And you're also right that this was a moment of decision for both of them. It was one thing for Wildrider to let Geri go when he barely knew her, and quite another to do so after he risked his life more than once to save her. Can't really blame him for expecting her to stick around after that, even with his complete disregard of sense and safety.

And yes, I'm planning lots of horses later on. ;)


	12. In which Swindle talks business

**Chapter 11: In which Swindle talks business**

"Wakey wakey, it's daybreaky!"

Geri thought that she would be forever grateful to anyone who put tranquilizers in Wildrider's gas tank. "How – how long have I been asleep?" she managed to say as she lifted her head.

"We were recharging for five hours. I've never been out that long before!"

He sounded as blithely peppy as always, and Geri would have liked even a fraction of that energy. Every bruise and scrape she had taken the night before made themselves felt, and she was so hungry that her stomach growled. The worst was the lack of sleep, though – her eyes felt swollen and the inside of her mouth was cottony. She wondered how long it had been since she had slept in a real bed, her own bed back home.

_Not much longer now_, she thought, trying to be optimistic. _Might as well get up and get ready_. If Wildrider was awake, he would bored in about ten seconds unless they did something, but she felt as if her limbs were made of lead.

"I need some coffee," she said. She had never drunk it before, but at that moment she would have taken anything to wake up. "And breakfast. Could we stop at a McDonalds or Burger King? I'll need to use their washroom too."

"Sure," Wildrider said, starting his engine, and she felt everything that wasn't bolted down shift to the right as he pulled out sharply. She dragged herself to a sitting position on the back seat and reached out, feeling for the spare clothes they had taken from the Target Wildrider had smashed into. That felt like a long time ago.

"Whatcha doin'?" Wildrider said.

Geri had sometimes wondered what it would be like to have a little brother or sister, but if it was anything like having a noisy, irresponsible companion who didn't sleep much and who seemed to constantly need attention, she supposed she should be grateful for being an only child. "What do you think I'm doing? I'm getting dressed." She had taken off her wet clothes the night before and wrapped herself in two blankets. "Don't look," she said as she started to pull them off.

Wildrider chuckled. "You sound just like Breakdown, except he's worth watching."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means humans look bad enough with their clothes _on_. So don't worry, I'm just going to pick out what you'll wear."

Geri straightened up reflexively and thumped her head on the roof. "Who do you think you are, my mom? You want to dress something, get a Barbie doll."

"What did I ever do to get stuck with a human who argues about everything?" Wildrider said, sighing theatrically. "I have to choose your clothes because you can't see the colors. You won't know which ones are blue and white."

"What? Why blue and white?" Knowing him, the reason had to be something that made no sense at all. He had probably watched some superhero show where everyone dressed in blue and white, or perhaps he thought those colors were impervious to bullets.

"'Cause that's what you were wearing before. It's confusing when you change colors. Anyway, I like white and blue."

Geri gave in; it was easier to do that than keep arguing, and at least the reason wasn't completely bizarre. "Fine. Pick out something." She plopped down on the back seat. "I wish you were a human. I'd get you a close-fitting jacket with really long sleeves."

Naturally, that was lost on Wildrider as he selected her clothes. Geri struggled into them and brushed the knots out of her hair, by which time they had pulled up with the usual squeal of brakes and sharp jolt forwards.

"I'll get the fuel," Wildrider said, opening a door. "Meet me at the drive-through window, okay?"

"Sure," Geri said, trying not to think about how he would convince the employees to hand over some coffee. She got out and fumbled her way along a wall until she reached another door. Being able to stand and having her feet on solid ground felt wonderful, and she let herself into the restaurant with a little more confidence.

There was a greasy smell of frying food in the air and people were bustling about inside, but a door swung open closer to her. She turned that way, hearing the sharp staccato of high heels on tiled floor. "Excuse me, do you know where the restroom is?"

The tuk-tuk-tuk sound halted and there was a pause before the woman said, "Right this way." Something about her voice made Geri nervous all over again, and she only nodded her thanks before she headed in the direction the woman had come from, trailing her hand along the wall and counting paces silently so she could find the way out again. At least she would be able to recognize the woman again; there had been a faint whiff of jasmine scent which was easy to pick out from the sausages and hash browns.

She used the washroom, dried her hands and let herself out, only to stop in her tracks. The smell of jasmine was still in the air, and she knew the woman was waiting for her.

"Honey, what happened to your face?" the woman said.

Geri had listened to enough books to know that "I walked into a door" was a common reply to questions like that, though until then she hadn't known how anyone could actually give such an unconvincing response. But suddenly she had another perspective: how could she tell the truth about what had happened to her? Not only was it difficult to believe, it was _personal_. She hadn't even told Wildrider about herself and her father until after he had saved her life, so she certainly wasn't about to open up to a stranger.

"It's nothing, really," she said, feeling for the wall to orient herself and to keep a solid structure on one side at least.

"Would you like to take my card?" the woman said. "I work for Children and Family Services, and you can call my office if you ever need help. No one deserves to be hit."

Geri felt her face grow hot, which she supposed made the bruise look twice as bad. "Thank you, but--"

There was an explosion outside, followed by gasps and cries. A tray clattered to the floor and the high heels took a step in that direction. Geri seized the opportunity to hurry out, and began to make her way around the building as something else blew up nearby. A burst of crazy laughter was even louder. She had heard talk show hosts say how frightening it was that Decepticons could disguise themselves as tape recorders and ordinary vehicles and go everywhere unnoticed, but she didn't think Wildrider could have escaped attention if they had been in the middle of a rock concert and a nuclear warhead had landed on it.

"There you are!" he called out as she turned the side of a building. Geri guessed the engines rumbling were cars at the drive-through window backing away from him as she hurried up. "They got your fuel!"

She could tell that from the rustle of a paper bag on her other side, and she grabbed it just as something else went up – or came down – in a thunderous roar. "They gave us the food," she said in a whisper, hoping Wildrider would stop firing to listen to her. "Why are you still shooting?"

"I'm targeting the place across the road."

"Why?"

"That's a fast-food joint too, so it's the competition! I'm doing these guys a favor!"

Judging from the screams inside the building beside her, no one seemed particularly grateful, but what was almost as bad – to Geri – was one of the cashiers at the window saying, "Isn't that the girl who was on TV last night?" She felt herself blushing again as she grabbed the door handle and scrambled inside with her bag of food. _What if there are cameras outside this place?_ she thought suddenly. _That'll be on TV too, and everyone will see me going along with some kind of crazy crime spree_.

"You need anything else?" Wildrider said, slamming the door shut.

Geri hoped the woman with the jasmine scent wasn't too frightened – or hurt in what sounded like a stampede for cover. "Just another paper bag to wear over my head."

"Why? You don't look _that_ awful."

Before Geri could reply to that, sirens screamed in the distance and Wildrider laughed as he sped up. She strapped herself in, thinking that anyone who traveled with him for any length of time probably got used to the sirens and crashes and explosions after a while; those became like low-key elevator music playing in the background.

"Could we stop somewhere safe?" she said. "I don't want to spill hot coffee all over myself."

Wildrider complained that stopped and safe equaled boring, so Geri pointed out that the hot coffee might also slop all over him and get into his stereo system. They were parked less than five minutes later, so she propped her feet up on the dashboard comfortably as she had her breakfast – and more importantly, thought about what they would do before they reached Colorado. She had no intention of trying Wildrider's hand-the-girl-over-and-see-what-happens approach again. _This time, I'll find out what I'm getting into first, somehow._

"Hey Geri, how d'you spell 'diesel'?" Wildrider said.

Geri knew at once that he was up to more mayhem. _Even when he's parked, he's a menace_. "Why, are you sending a postcard home?"

"Ha ha, cute. No, I'm burning 'Autobots suck diesel exhaust' into a billboard."

"I don't believe this. You're damaging billboards with insults and you're worried about your spelling?"

"I'm a terrorist, not a moron. So, 'diesel'… is it i-e or e-i?"

Geri sipped her coffee, grimacing at the taste. "Get a dictionary."

"Aw, c'mon. Stop being a spoilsport and tell me!"

"_No_, Wildrider. I'm not going to help you vandalize anything."

Wildrider made a sound halfway between a huff and a sigh. "Have you noticed that you say 'No' a lot?"

"No, I haven't," Geri said, but she couldn't help smiling and she heard Wildrider chuckle. She felt suddenly guilty, though; her father was still a prisoner and she didn't know what would be done to him as a result of her escape. Miss Andrews's words – "as soon as he dies" – echoed in her memory.

_Can't get distracted,_ she thought as she finished the coffee. Awful though that had tasted, at least it made her feel a little more alive.

"We need to learn more about this Mr. Stover," she said as Wildrider started up again.

"Like what?"

"Like, why would he want to kidnap me, if he's rich enough to own a plane and a ranch and a construction company. And before you even think about it, I'm not his long-lost daughter or his younger sister who was abducted by aliens."

"Sheesh, I'm not that dumb," Wildrider said, turning the radio on. "You must've got something he wants, but I'll be slagged if I know what."

"Is there any way you could find out more about him?" Geri said. Even if she had been able to walk into a library without attracting attention, she couldn't have used the Internet there without a webpage reader of some sort.

"Not really," Wildrider said dubiously. "Soundwave would be able to tap into any network, but I'm under radio knockout at the base. Even if I try them, they won't… wait a minute, the Combaticons have a base as well!"

Geri had no idea who he was talking about, but it sounded like he had found a way around the problem. "Great. Let's go for it."

The music cut off abruptly, followed by a rapid flurry of clicks. Geri sat up a little straighter. Suddenly she was aware that she would be listening to Decepticons, to vicious aliens she had previously only heard about on the news, to giant creatures which could – and would – crush her like a bug underfoot. It was an unsettling realization.

_Somehow I never saw Wildrider as one of them. At first he was the talking car who saved me, and then he was so odd and reckless and funny that I never thought of him as being just one more Decepticon, just one more part of a hostile foreign army._ She wondered if it worked the other way around as well. No wonder people were discouraged from fraternizing with the enemy during a war.

"Comm link established," Wildrider said, sounding pleased.

"Swindle here," said a voice on the other end of the link. "That you, Wildrider? You were on the news the other day. The humans say that you kidnapped some kid for ransom, but I knew you didn't."

"Really?" Wildrider sounded even more pleased.

"Yeah, 'cause that would be a sane, intelligent reason to kidnap someone. So why'd you do it?"

"…I hope you go broke, Swindle."

"The frag?" Swindle sounded taken aback. "That's harsh, 'Rider. You ought to be nice to your elders and betters."

"Shove it up your tailpipe. We need some information on one of the humans – rich guy, name's Stover, owns a company called SLS. Think you might know more?"

"I might." The hurt tone was instantly replaced by a relaxed drawl. "If I'm paid enough."

_Paid? _Geri thought in dismay. She had no money at all, and what if the aptly-named Swindle wanted hundreds or thousands of dollars?

"Paid?" Wildrider said. "C'mon, Swindle, this isn't classified info. You can look it up on the fragging Internet!"

"Then go look it up." Swindle sounded amused. "But I wouldn't give you the time of day without, shall we say, adequate compensation. So either cough up the credits or get off the comm."

"I'm on the road. Where am I supposed to find those credits?"

"You know that kid you grabbed?" another voice said in the background. "Well, this might come as a surprise, but prisoners can be exchanged for large sums of money! Unless you've traded it for an energon lolly already?"

"I heard that's what Swindle got for your personality component, Vortex," Wildrider said, "but then again, he's a shrewd businessmech who knows the value of everything. Just a second while I get the money." For all of a moment Geri allowed herself to hope that the problem was solved, before the radio gave another click and Wildrider said, "How are we gonna pay him?"

Obviously the usual methods of making threats and blowing things up wouldn't work on other Decepticons. "You don't have any money?" she said.

"I spend it when I get it. Can't see the point in collecting the stuff."

Geri wasn't surprised. Wildrider struck her as the type who lived fast and died young, which didn't make her feel any better. "I don't have any either. Could we get credit?"

"From _Swindle_? Yeah, and after that Motormaster will give you a ride." Wildrider suddenly sounded cheerier. "I know! We'll rob a bank."

"No!" Geri said. "My mom was a bank teller."

"So? 'Was' means she doesn't work at one any more, right?"

"Never mind. No robbing banks, please."

"Well, you tell me how we're going to pay Swindle then! Before he gets tired of waiting and cuts the comm."

Geri chewed at a corner of her lip. "Would he be interested in an opportunity to make a lot of money?"

The radio clicked again. "Swindle, my… uh, my prisoner wants to know if you'd be interested in an opportunity to make a lot of money."

"Keep talking," Swindle purred.

"We know this Mr. Stover is rich," Geri said. "And he's the one who tried to have me kidnapped. But I'll bet he wouldn't want anyone to know he was involved in doing that to a poor little blind girl. I think he'll pay you to keep quiet about it."

"In other words, blackmail?" Swindle said. "I don't know." _Great,_ Geri thought, _he doesn't like being underhanded._ "There's gotta be evidence for that kind of thing to work."

_Oh good, he doesn't mind it at all._ "There is. I hid my library card in the room where I was kept prisoner, and that's on a place Mr. Stover owns. If you help us, I'll tell you exactly where I put it."

"I like your way of thinking, human," Swindle said. "Yes, he should be interested in finding the evidence before the cops do."

"And once he pays up you can give him a false location," Geri said. "Tell the cops where it _really_ is and let them take care of the bastard."

There was a brief pause. "You're crafty and backstabbing, human," Swindle said. "When Wildrider's done with you, I have dibs."

"Hey!" Wildrider said. "She's mine. Get your own."

"Please, with the way you drive she won't last long--"

"Okay, let's get back to the point," Geri said, thinking that the only thing more difficult than dealing with a Decepticon was dealing with two of them. "What do you know about this guy?"

"Does he have any kids?" Wildrider said. "Like a long-lost, really bossy daughter?"

"Lemme check… Uh-uh, no living family on record except for a younger brother. The financial info is really something, though." Swindle's voice took on a tone as soft as velvet. "Emmett Stover is the chair and major shareholder of a corporation which controls six subsidiaries. He owns property in eight states and two other countries and has appeared on the Forbes 400 list."

Geri didn't understand the last part of that list of numbers, but the rest boiled down to four words: _he's very, very rich_. She tried not to think of what kind of resources someone like that could use against her family. "Does he own a company called SLS? It has to do with construction."

"It's a low-grade drop in the cube compared to everything else he's got, but yeah, he owns part of that."

"And he's on a ranch in Colorado right now?" Wildrider said.

"I can't tell. I'm looking through the Internet, not his day planner." There was a pause, with some quiet beeps and clicks in the background. "He seems kind of reclusive, though. Last public appearance was nearly three months ago, at some meeting to raise awareness about organ donation." Swindle pronounced _donation_ as if it was an especially foul word. "That's the problem with human entrepreneurs – once they make a lot of money, they all turn into philanthropists."

"Take it from me, Swindle, there's no making sense of humans," Wildrider said in a tone of world-weary wisdom.

"You said it, buddy. Need anything else, like this guy's net worth?"

"No, thank you," Geri said. She was absolutely sure she didn't need to hear a figure that ran into the millions or billions of dollars; that would only be more disheartening. So she gave Swindle the exact location of her library card and assured him that she wouldn't ruin his chances for successful blackmail by going to the authorities.

Though she supposed the police would find her once Wildrider's last two days on the run were up. And when they did, she knew she would be in trouble. _No, Dad won't let anything happen to me,_ she thought, _though he'll probably ground me for the rest of my life._

The music came on again, and she guessed Wildrider had cut the radio link. "Hey Geri," he said, "what's organ donation?"

"You don't know? You talked to Swindle like you did."

"I'm not going to look stupid in front of the Combaticons."

Geri could understand that – she wouldn't have wanted to look stupid in front of anyone. "All right, organ donation is where people with medical problems get replacement organs… you know, body parts… from others."

"From dead humans, you mean?"

"No, people can donate organs while they're living. Well, as long as the organs aren't hearts, I guess."

"Wow!" Wildrider said. "I didn't know humans were so brutal. We turn mechs into spare parts after they die, but you guys don't even wait that long."

Geri massaged her temples, controlling a sudden urge to sing the Scarecrow's "If I Only Had a Brain" song from _The Wizard of Oz._ "Some people give others organs they can spare, because they're trying to save lives."

"Oh." He sounded disappointed, but that didn't last long. "Soooo…. why'd you think this Stover fellow tried to have you kidnapped?"

Something about the new tone of his voice – half-excited and half-anticipatory – reminded Geri of the time he had asked her whether she was a Mafia boss's daughter. _Yay_, _time for another episode of Wildrider's Wacky World of Bizarre Theories._ "I've no idea."

"Remember Swindle told us the guy's really into this spare parts donation thingy? Maybe he's found a way to get new optics for people like you."

_Oh, this one's the best yet_. "Go on," Geri said, trying to sound politely interested; no matter how crazy Wildrider was, she didn't want to hurt his feelings.

He picked up on her skepticism, though. "You heard what Swindle said – these ultra-rich types are always out to help charity cases."

"I'm not a charity case!" Geri said, stung out of her usual manners.

"Well, not to me, kiddo, but to him you might be."

"Whether that's true or not, why would he have me kidnapped if he was trying to help me?"

There was a pause. "Maybe he meant it as a surprise?" Wildrider said hopefully.

"Oh, it's a real surprise to have people trying to shoot me. Not to mention wanting to lock me up for two months and running blood tests--"

Geri stopped as she realized what she had just said. _Blood tests._ That was why the doctor had stuck a needle in her, to run tests of some kind… did that mean they wanted to _help_ her?

_No way._ If someone wanted to do that, to cure a disease she had had all her life, why not just ask? Her father wouldn't let anyone subject her to new experimental procedures that might or might not work, but surely they could have asked first instead of trying to kidnap her and then planning to hold her prisoner for two months.

She shivered involuntarily, and scrubbed her palms up and down her forearms. There was only one thing more frightening than being on the run from unknown people with a multimillionaire's funding behind them, and that was Wildrider actually being right about something concerning humans. Fortunately he hadn't heard what she'd said about the blood tests; he was too caught up on the "two months" part.

"Does it take that long for humans to install replacements?" he said. "Hook could do it in no time."

"Look, no one's installing anything," Geri said, wondering why this Hook (if he was such a hotshot) hadn't seen fit to repair whatever had gone wrong in Wildrider's head. Maybe that was beyond his capabilities. Or worse, maybe Wildrider had been even _more_ insane in the past, but Hook had improved him to his current condition. "Even if Mr. Stover wanted to help blind people, why pick me? He doesn't know me – he doesn't even live in the same state as I do. How could he find out that I was blind, let alone where I live?" There was no reply to that. "Anyway, this is a genetic condition, not an eye injury. They… cannot… be… replaced."

"One way to find out for sure," Wildrider said, and the music cut off again.

Geri had believed she had a lot of patience and self-control, but she was reaching the point where she would ask to be let out at the nearest police station, just to stop Wildrider going on and on about that particular topic. Maybe changing the subject would work. "Where are we now?" she said.

"Reno, the biggest little city in the world," Wildrider said, as enthusiastically as if he had come up with the name by himself, though he sounded even more excited when he continued. "All right! Comm link established. I'm going to ask Breakdown and Dead End about this."

Geri guessed those were more Decepticons, though she wasn't looking forward to more negotiations. "Will they want to be paid as well?"

"Nah, they're my teammates," Wildrider said. "Actually, Vector Sigma jump-started us all together so I guess that makes us brothers, except we're not supposed to use human words like that."

"Oh," Geri said. "Are they, uh, are they anything like you?" It was difficult to imagine two more Decepticons just like Wildrider – the world wasn't a large enough place for that.

"No, they're a bit weird. And Motormaster's ten flavors of nasty, so whatever you do, don't make a peep when I open the link."

"I won't," Geri said, wondering just how productive it would be to speak to them. If Wildrider, who was a few raisins short of a fruitcake, thought his own brothers were weird, they were probably a couple of raving lunatics. Still, at least that might distract him from his fixation with her getting new eyes. She was used to being blind, but not to someone hoping aloud that she could be cured.

"Okay, now _shhh_!" Wildrider said in a stage whisper before the radio clicked and he switched to his usual voice. "Hey, Deadster! What's up?"

* * *

**dixiegurl13**: Good to hear that you enjoyed Wildrider in this story! He's the second insane character I've written, and in both cases my fascination has been not just with their violence but also with the strange way they see the world. They're not entirely in synch with the rest of us or with reality. In Wildrider's case I'm aiming for laughs rather than scariness, though.

Interesting, by the way… I just realized that in your fic "The enemy of my enemy is my enemy", Skywarp and Stinger become friends because they have so much in common even though one is a human and the other a robot. In this fic, Geri and Wildrider bond because, as you said, they're so different. Just more evidence that the "Decepticon teams up with human, hijinks ensue" core idea can give rise to many, many different fics. :)

**Sin-Skyeon, narmoture**: Yes, that's one way I see Wildrider – not quite mature, not quite sane, but very much fun and the source of constant chaos. Thanks for commenting!

**VampireArgonian92**: The horses are on the ranch in Colorado, and they're playing a role in the story too, later.

Poor horses.

**Taipan Kiryu**: As you said, although Geri didn't realize it, it wasn't fair to ask for Wildrider's help when she needed it and then tell him to leave when she didn't. Now that she realized she could help him as well, though, their relationship is much more equal.

The Stockholm Syndrome was something I wanted to avoid at all costs with this story, by the way. So Geri always has the option of leaving, but she stays with Wildrider because she comes to think of him as a friend.

As for Wildrider, if there's any message he should take home from this, it's that when dealing with human females, "Stay with me because you need me" might not work, but "Stay with me because _I_ need _you_" will probably be more successful.

Interesting you should mention how the other Stunticons come into the story as well. I hadn't realized it until you pointed it out, and they certainly weren't as absent-but-present in the Drag Strip story. But then again, Wildrider is much less self-centered than Drag Strip. Glad you liked his realizations about the team, too! I think that sharing a mind should lead to a greater awareness of each other even when the gestalt is separate, maybe even the another-part-of-me condition that Wildrider experiences a few times.

Thanks for the detailed review!

**Fire From Above**: Good to hear you liked the analogy; Wildrider would think in terms of speed and slowing down. I don't think Wildrider explains exactly what it means to be a Stunticon, because he's not too clear on that himself, but he does tell Geri some interesting/gory details about what it's like to deal with mechs like the _other_ Stunticons.

**meteor prime**: This chapter takes place on the morning of Wildrider's fifth day, meaning his time is running out, and the Aerialbots don't appear again in the story, though the Protectobots play a major role.

I've always thought that it's the Protectobots rather than the Aerialbots who should be the mortal enemies of the Stunticons. After all, if there's cars zooming through city streets, it might be even more dangerous to send jets after them. But the Protectobots would find it easier to intercept them, so that's what'll happen here… eventually.

**tomorrow4eva** : Hope you enjoyed Wildrider's attempts to make sense of events. ;) I'll try to keep him (and everyone else) guessing!


	13. In which Breakdown is resourceful

**Chapter 13: In which Breakdown is resourceful**

"Wildrider? Why are you contacting us?"

"What, I can't say hi to my own team?"

"Since that allows anyone monitoring radio signals to tap into our communications and pinpoint our location, thereby targeting us for imminent destruction--"

"Okay, forget that. Listen, I need some help."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Help. That's like a really nice thing that you do for a really nice teammate of yours. Now look, I need to know about this weird genetic thingy that makes human optics malfunction. I think only about three billion – no, wait, three thousand of 'em in this part of the world have it."

"This is a… bizarre request, even for you. You want to find out about a human disease?"

"Yeah, it's important, and I ain't got the Internet on hand right now. Can you look it up?"

"Breakdown, did you hear that? Oh, good. Would you mind looking it up?"

"But I want to recharge. Motormaster, could you look--"

"_Breakdown!_"

"I'm kidding, Wildrider! Keep your hubcaps on, he's not here."

"Are you over-energized or something?"

"Not yet, just… relaxed, I think."

"Relaxed, huh? That's just _swell_."

"Yes, it is quite swell. We had a refreshing scrub this afternoon – natural sponges on the paintwork, coconut husks on the undercarriage – and then two rinses in soft water. Did you know the minerals make quite a difference? Now we're getting fresh coats of--"

"Wait, where the slag are you guys anyway? I thought you'd be back in the base after your special secret mission, not getting spa sessions."

"Don't interrupt me again, Wildrider, it's rude. We're in India. We finished with our assignment and decided we deserved a little vacation."

"Yeah? Well, I just hope the boss arrives and finds you two lying around and getting scrubbed with coconuts."

"My, my, you sound just like Drag Strip. Don't worry, Motormaster's gone to New Delhi. We heard some of the humans there are building a statue of him."

"Huh? Why the frag would anyone build a statue of him – target practice?"

"Appeasement would be my guess, although a trailerful of energon would have done a better job of that."

"Humans are so weird."

"My sentiments exactly. And what's the point? The statue will erode and be nothing more than dust eventually. Of course, so will we, so perhaps there's some deep fitting rightness to it all."

"Okay, Wildrider, I looked up that disease you wanted to know about. And it's creepy."

"Really? I thought you'd like the idea of humans not being able to see you."

"Not that part. I mean the project about them."

"What project?"

"Let me see that, Breakdown. Hm. Seems there's a project that gathers genetic data on all the humans who have this particular disease, Leber's congenital amaurosis. I suppose someone's researching it and looking for a cure, though I'm not sure why they'd go to so much trouble. It won't make any difference in the end, will it?"

"Ugh. I wouldn't want anyone to investigate me like that… studying me, filing everything about me in some database where anyone could look at it."

"How do you want us to send you all this information, Wildrider?"

"…"

"Wildrider?"

"…"

"Wildrider, are you there?"

"Maybe someone's ambushed him and he's been killed."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Listen, have you ever had this feeling that you're really close to making sense of something but you just can't see how it all fits together just yet?"

"…Wildrider, what is this all about?"

"I'll tell you guys later. Have fun over there. And bring us back some souvenirs."

--_click_--

"Souvenirs?"

"I suppose we could pick something up from a local market once we've recharged. Yes, that will do, Anjali. You can stop fanning us. Pratibha, bring us the best high-grade you have in an hour's time. And close the shades when you leave… You look preoccupied."

"Mm. I was just thinking of that statue."

"Target practice sounds interesting."

"Too easy. What if it had a different head instead?"

"A different head?"

"Let's find someone who can carve a good likeness of Optimus Prime."

"…Breakdown, you have an evil, delightful mind."

* * *

**demonicSuperCow**: Always good to meet another Stunticon fan! Please drop me a PM when you post your fic and I'll check it out. And thanks for your feedback! It's great to know that my OC as well as the feature character works for readers.

**meteor prime**: Thanks for your review! The other Stunticons _will_ find out. I imagine that as soon as they returned to the base after their vacation, they got handed a list of everything Wildrider did in their absence and told to deal with him – and with any humans for whom he's developed an un-Decepticon-like attachment.

Which they'd do willingly. I can't see any combiner team being happy to share one of its members, especially with someone so much weaker and not worthy of him.

**Taipan Kiryu**: Glad you like Wildrider's dialogue! My thoughts on him wanting Geri to wear the same colors is that on a battlefield, with events moving fast and likely poor visibility, rapid and accurate identification would be important. Therefore, he wouldn't want her to change her colors. As you said, color is part of identity for Transformers.

Plus, Transformers are so large that they probably wouldn't notice small details such as freckles or eye color, so they have to go by other methods.

And Wildrider probably thinks of her as a problematic younger sibling too. After all, he's the older one – chronologically, if not mentally. In reality they're both equals in their relationship, because they bring different things to it and complement each other, but each of them believes they're somehow in charge.

It's weird, though, how Swindle crops up in all these fics. Here I didn't start out intending to have him in the story, but since he would be the one most likely to know about a human businessman, he stole the stage for a moment. You're right, he's amoral in a different way; he really doesn't care if he's on the side of the angels or the demons as long as he gets paid in the end. Maybe that's why he gets so much airtime – he's a fascinating character too.

Thanks for your encouragement and support. I appreciate it muchly. :)

**dixiegurl13 **: It's been fun watching Wildrider come up with new ways and new reasons to keep destroying things, though we're getting to the end of the road (story's 20 chapters and I'm at #16). Hope you'll update "The Enemy of my Enemy is my Enemy" soon, by the way. Really looking forward to reading about the Stinger-Skywarp reunion.

**Fire From Above**: Thanks! I wanted to make sure Wildrider kept being unpredictable, loopy and destructive – Geri isn't going to redeem or humanize him, because he's fine just as he is.

And what she meant by the "jacket with long sleeves" comment was that she'd fit him with a straitjacket if he was human.


	14. In which Streetwise is on the case

**Chapter 14: In which Streetwise is on the case**

_Author's note : This is a very short chapter, so I'll be uploading the next one as well later on tonight. That's much more substantial – we're in the endgame now._

* * *

"Blades, you there?"

"I'm more than there, I'm ahead of the two of you! I'll be in Salt Lake City before nightfall."

"Only because Groove and I have to use the highways rather than flying. Let's stay within visual range, just in case."

"We're not that Stunticon's primary targets, Streets. He's after the humans, haven't you noticed? And he ran away from us after we found him."

"I know, but he'll attack us just as fast when we try to stop him. And something weird's going on. I spoke to the survivors at that construction company, and I got the impression that they weren't telling me everything that had happened."

"Maybe they're just scared. You know what it's like – we arrive after the 'cons have ruined a place and killed half the people, and the other half just see more giant robots coming to finish the job."

"That's true. Besides, there's no doubt Wildrider was there. The humans even gave me his gun."

"Good. I wouldn't mind performing the _coup de grace_ with the slagger's own weapon."

"Blades…"

"You heard what Hot Spot said. We're authorized. Shoot to kill."

"I'd still like to question him first. The cops in Sutter Creek said it looked like the girl voluntarily stayed with him."

"Yeah? Well, a social worker in Cold Springs said she saw the girl up close, and it looked like someone had hit her. Hard."

"Primus."

"At least she's still alive. There's at least fifteen humans who aren't so lucky."

"Still alive so far. Who knows what that psychotic bastard will do to her next?"

"Who knows what he'll ever do? Did they say why he's going to Colorado?"

"No, just that he's after one of the owners of that construction company. Maybe he's finally snapped. Gone off the deep end and fried his last processor."

"Streets?"

"Yeah?"

"First Aid said it would be wrong to execute someone who's completely insane and doesn't know what he's doing."

"Remember when we watched _To Kill a Mockingbird_? The scene where Atticus Finch shoots the mad dog?"

"I get it. Atticus didn't ask that dog too many questions before he fired, though, did he?"

"Point taken, Blades."

"I'm touching down near the Lincoln Highway, just outside Grantsville. I'll wait for you there."

"Good idea. We'll need to refuel by then anyway, and after that we'll head for Colorado."

* * *

**Taipan Kiryu** : Thanks for the review! I think there are signs in canon that Drag Strip and Wildrider are friends – for instance, in "Cosmic Rust", when Drag Strip goes water-skiing, Wildrider drives the motorboat. And as you said, they're enough like each other that they'd get along. Glad you liked the interaction between Wildrider and the other two. I love including parts where the dialogue stands alone and carries the scene, and since this is a radio communication, it seemed apropos.

As for Breakdown, you're right – he can be intelligent and quick-witted when he's not worried that he's being watched, or afraid that Motormaster's going to bully him. Too bad that doesn't happen more often.

**dixiegurl13**: This vacation was definitely a present from the Stunticons to the Stunticons; the way they see it, they don't need to involve Megatron in little day-to-day details like that. He's got bigger issues on his mind.

As for Megatron, he doesn't try to micromanage the Stunticons' time unless they do something stupid like ram down a door. They're unshakeably loyal to him and will be there when they're really needed, but they have never been easy to control. I don't think any of the 'con combiners are, though they express it in different ways.

Cool, your family's from India? I'm originally from Sri Lanka, but the country's got enough going on without my inflicting a bunch of 'cons on it. :)

**Fire From Above** : You know, I never really thought of how Wildrider might indulge himself. He just might be able to stay still and in one place long enough for a thorough wash if he was really enjoying it. Otherwise I can see him spinning in a circle to shake off the water, like a large dog, and zooming off for some fun.

**tomorrow4eva** : I don't think there are any other types of genetically-caused blindness which affect only three thousand people – that's one reason a project is being done on it in real life. Putting "congenital blindness" and "3000" into Google brings up an article mentioning that specific disease as the first hit, so I assumed those were the terms that Breakdown used when doing an online search. :)

Thanks for the reviews!

**meteor prime** : I hear you on the catch-up part. I like hearing from the other members of a team too, especially since in a gestalt there's so much influence they have on each other (and on the plot). Hope it wasn't too difficult in this chapter to tell who was saying what.


	15. In which Wildrider hits Colorado

**Chapter 15: In which Wildrider hits Colorado**

Wildrider had long since run out of generic insults to the Autobots and had switched to specifics, so his lasers scorched, "Prowl & Jazz do it with manacles" on to a large billboard. He signed Streetwise's name to that and drew a pretty flourish under it before speeding off in the wrong direction on the highway.

Just discovering how the kidnappers had found Geri made him feel even more exuberant than he usually did, and he laughed as he dodged the oncoming traffic. _That project some misguided humans are doing on anyone with her malfunction, that has to be it. All the information about her, stored where anyone can see it._ It was only one piece in the puzzle, one answer compared to all the questions he still had, but it was something, and he had worked it out all by himself. _Not bad for someone who's crazy._

Geri frowned when he cut the comm link and told her what he thought. "Yes, I took part in that project," she said, and Wildrider let out a whoop of glee – it was great to be proven right when it came to thinking. "But they wouldn't give my name or address out to anyone. It's confidential."

"_Sure_ it is." Soundwave could hack into any computer network, but since humans lacked Decepticon skill, Wildrider guessed they would resort to more mundane methods of obtaining information. "Pay anyone enough and they'll turn into Swindle."

The creases slowly faded from Geri's forehead but she still didn't look convinced. "I still don't know why anyone would be looking through whatever files that project keeps. I mean, they'd have to know there was such a project in the first place – and I don't think many people have heard of it. And they'd have to pay a lot to get that information, too. Seems like a lot of trouble to go through to kidnap someone, and it's not like my family's rich or anything."

"We'll find out when we meet this Stover guy," Wildrider said, attention wandering to a truck up ahead which seemed to have spotted him from nearly a mile ahead. It came on without reducing its speed – which he supposed it didn't need to do, considering how much heavier than him it was – and that was a challenge no Stunticon would have been able to resist.

Wildrider jinked to one side and weaved to the other, zigzagging over the highway, avoiding oncoming vehicles while keeping most of his attention on the truck and flipping through his sound files at the same time. Metal Church's "Badlands" began playing as he accelerated, veering to the left of the truck's path.

To his delight, the truck actually shifted as if trying to block his way. _Let me show you how to _really_ play in traffic,_ Wildrider thought and slewed right. The truck did the same – and nearly collided with a mobile home that had come up fast on that lane, without seeing the oncoming Ferrari ahead.

Horn blaring, Wildrider plunged forward, aiming for the mobile home's other side. The driver swerved to avoid him and crashed into the truck. That sent them both skidding off the highway and sent Wildrider into a fit of giggles as he cruised ahead at a more leisurely speed. Truck-baiting was even more exhilarating without a forcefield, knowing what any head-on collision at that speed would do.

_This is living on the edge,_ he thought_. Dead End would ask why I'm rushing to meet my inevitable death, but if I'm good enough - and I am - that's the most not-inevitable thing in the world._

"What are you doing now?" Geri said.

"Driving east on the westbound highway. That's _always_ fun."

Geri shook her head. "You know, every time I think you can't possibly do anything more crazy, you prove me wrong."

Wildrider laughed again. "You say that like it's a bad thing!" Even the other Stunticons complained about his driving from time to time, so he was used to that and actually liked it, since it gave him the opportunity to make some smart-aft remark in reply.

"Might be a good idea not to draw too much attention to ourselves before we reach Colorado, though," Geri said. "Would you mind moving to the other side of the highway?"

Wildrider was getting used to the politeness, so that alone might not have made a difference, but she had a point about not alerting every Autobot to his whereabouts. So, grumbling to make sure Geri didn't think he was giving in too easily ("I said I wanted brakes, not a slagging wheel clamp"), he bounced over the median and into the correct lane of the I-70. "If you like, I'll go at the speed limit too," he said sweetly.

"Would you," Geri said, looking skeptical.

"Sure. The speed limit on the Autobahn." Wildrider snickered. "Look on the bright side, kiddo. At least you're not with Drag Strip – he'd go even faster, and he doesn't have a music collection."

"He's one of your friends too, right?" Geri said. "What'll they do when they find out you helped me?"

"Drag Strip won't like it, Dead End won't care, and Breakdown'll try to decide whether it's all right to have a human looking at you if it can't really see you. But they'll all do the same thing when the boss finds out – they'll get out of the way. That's all anyone can do when Motormaster's torqued off."

Geri looked worried. "Will he hit you?"

_If I'm lucky_, Wildrider thought. He had only rebelled against Motormaster once in his life, refusing to obey an order even when he'd been threatened with massive amounts of pain prior to permanent deactivation. If they had been in the same room – or even the same state – he might have given in, but Motormaster had been in the base with the rest of the Stunticons. So Wildrider had sped off down a highway, laughing at orders and threats alike.

It had just felt so good to be free, not under Motormaster's fist for a little while at least. And if the price he had to pay was some injury, he could accept that. Except the consequences had been worse. He couldn't remember what the original order had been, but he would never forget Motormaster's voice on the comm link, all the anger in it turning to a cold calculation as he said, "Since you're not here to take the _discipline_ you deserve, Wildrider, one of your teammates will take it instead. And they'll all know it's happening because of you. Now, who's it gonna be? Do you want to choose?"

There was a soft chuckle and the comm link went dead. Wildrider slammed his brakes, spun into a bootlegger reverse and headed for the base at top speed, trying the radio channels again and again. No one answered. By the time he got home it was all over, and the Constructicons were making repairs in silence. Wildrider didn't always obey orders perfectly after that, but he never defied Motormaster again either.

"If I'm lucky," he said. "That isn't so bad compared to other ways to punish someone."

Geri's brows went up. "I'll take your word for it," she said quietly. "My parents never hit me."

_That explains a lot._ Wildrider couldn't help thinking that a few well-placed swats would have made her much more respectful of superior force, though he also admitted to himself that he was used to the way she was. "You forget pain. You don't forget other things." _Like being humiliated, or knowing one of your teammates was beaten for what you did, or hearing how worthless and weak and stupid you are._ Motormaster had far more ways to keep his troops under his control than just hitting them.

Geri touched the handle of the door lightly, not so much bracing herself as if to reassure herself that he was there. _Or maybe it's the other way around,_ Wildrider thought absently. "If you don't mind my saying so, your boss sounds like a jerk."

"Oh, he is!" Wildrider spent the next hour telling her all about Motormaster and enjoying the shocked expressions, sympathetic remarks and little soothing pats he got. The Stunticons never complained about their leader among themselves, partly because they all knew what he was like and partly because they simply didn't whine about injury or punishment (though whining about hidden cameras, the futility of life and not getting a first-place finish were normal). He knew he'd be punished for that too, but he was already in trouble. _In for a credit, in for a cube, as Swindle would say._

That took them the rest of the way to Colorado, by which time it was afternoon. One of Wildrider's tires blew out shortly afterwards, but he was used to that and it was easy enough to find a garage where the humans could be threatened into finding a replacement as fast as they could after fetching fuel for both him and Geri. By then, they were close enough to Colorado Springs that the humans knew of the Stover ranch as well.

"What kinda defences does it have?" Wildrider said, but all they had heard was that the ranch had been designed to handle a nuclear explosion, which wasn't exactly reassuring. By the time he and Geri were on the road again, he was imagining some kind of Bio-Dome-like structure with lead walls ten inches thick.

"He knows we're coming and it sounds like he's in a fortress," Geri said. Her voice was flat and quiet.

Wildrider took the turnoff to Colorado Springs. "Cool," he said, even though he wasn't sure how he could break into such a place without his forcefield or thrusters or any weapon other than his lasers. "Humans build fortresses to keep other humans out. I'm not another human."

Geri actually smiled at that, but she suggested that they take cover and look over the ranch before approaching it, and Wildrider – still remembering the electric fence – had to agree. So he pulled off the highway, came to a T-junction and went straight ahead, after burning "Wildrider went THAT way" into a sign pointing right. I _wonder how many humans'll change their travel plans after seeing that,_ he thought.

Checking his maps, he drove across a field and up the slope of a hill; the ranch was very close by, in the valley on the other side. The late-afternoon sun was bright and warm, but the shadows of trees fell across him, one by one at first but then close and thick enough to break the sunlight into fragments.

_They'll break me too, if I hit them._ Wildrider cut his speed to avoid thumping into the trees – without a forcefield he knew he would come off second best – and finally gave up on further cruising in alt-mode. "We'll have to go the rest of the way on foot," he said. "Too many trees."

Geri climbed out and staggered, clutching at him for support – which would have worked if he hadn't transformed at that moment. She lost her balance and sat down hard on a pile of twigs.

"You okay?" Wildrider managed to say between giggles.

Geri glared at his knee-joint. "No, I've got way too many bruises and I'm all cramped." _Bruises? _Wildrider guessed the other humans had beaten her, and she obviously wasn't used to that kind of thing. "Still, at least the ground's not moving."

_I could change that. Maybe if I stomped hard enough?_ Wildrider was distracted from that as he checked his self-diagnostics and realized that he wasn't in such great shape either. His repair systems had patched him up to the point where he wasn't in pain, but the damage to his right hand was beyond them. He couldn't flex his fingers, and his thrusters were still offline. _I'll need a couple fresh coats of paint too… never been so scratched up before._

Geri put a hand out, touched one of his ankle-wheels and used it to pull herself up to a standing position. "Guess we'd better get a move on."

"Wanna sit on my shoulder?" Wildrider wouldn't normally have put any human there – he didn't mind soft, fragile, fluid-filled things being squashed under his tires but he didn't want anything similar happening near his face. Geri sounded worn out, though, and he didn't want to be slowed down because of that.

"All right," she said dubiously, glancing up.

It was a bit weird, Wildrider thought, to have someone look at you without meeting your optics, with a gaze fixed to one side of you or on your abdominal plating. Getting that repaired would have been cool, though he supposed Geri knew what she was talking about when she had said that couldn't be done. Some problems just seemed there to stay.

He picked her up as carefully as he could and plopped her down on his shoulder. "Don't touch the spike, it's kinda ticklish. Hold on to the wheel."

"What spike?" Geri flinched back as if expecting to be impaled with one at any moment, though since she was perched on his shoulder she didn't have much room to move. She wrapped one arm around her stomach and hugged his shoulder-wheel tightly with the other.

Before Wildrider could answer, he heard the scream of a siren in the distance, a sound that wove in and out and sounded oddly familiar. "We got company," he said as he headed towards the sound, aware that neither cops nor Autobots were likely to shoot at him for fear of hurting Geri. _And hey, if they keep thinking I've taken her as a hostage, why not play along?_

The lowest branches of the trees slapped lightly against him and he hoped they wouldn't sweep Geri off; if his reflexes weren't good enough to catch her, she would probably break as soon as she landed. Past the tall straight trunks he saw the ground drop off just ahead. Below the cliff was a narrow two-lane highway, but before he had the chance to either start a landslide or transform and leap off, the blue-and-white interceptor raced along the road with siren blaring and was gone.

Geri spoke in a whisper that Wildrider might not have heard if she hadn't been so close to an audial. "Can they see us through the trees?"

"It's just Streetwise, and he's gone. Didn't spot us, the moron."

"He's one of the Autobots?"

Wildrider laughed shortly, half contemptuous and half amused, as he turned to make his way back through the trees. "Y'know something, kiddo? It's like the Autobots thought they weren't being big enough melting-sparks already, so they threw the Protectobots together. Drag Strip calls 'em squishy-lovers and Dead End says that if you shot one, it'd leak the milk of human kindness, whatever the frag that is. That's why I fire at 'em from a distance – don't wanna get the stuff all over me."

"So why did the Decepticons make you guys, then?" Geri said.

Wildrider had never really thought about that. He knew that he and his teammates had been created to fight the Autobots, but that was what all the other 'cons did too, though some had different tactics and goals. None of the other 'cons had been built to fight on the open roads, though, to dominate the land as the Seekers ruled the sky.

And none of them had been designed or intended to blend in with human vehicles until they revealed their true colors, giving them the option of subterfuge as well as out-and-out mayhem. Megatron had forged the Stunticons as the second most powerful of his weapons. Which was the party line that his programming offered up, and Wildrider was pretty sure his teammates had their own ideas about why they had been built and had come online. As far as he was concerned, though…

"They made us 'cause we're nothing like the 'bots," he said, turning sideways to slip between two of the trees, leaves rustling against his armor. "Other than having cars as alt-modes." Like matter and anti-matter; one way to destroy something was to pit it against its polar opposite – insanity and cruelty and despair – and wait for the two to cancel each other out.

"Are you sure you're nothing like them?" Geri said, clinging on to his shoulder-wheel as he ducked under a branch – tall though he was, the treetops were so far above his head that he could barely make them out. "I mean, you're protecting me."

"That's you, not every squishy in sight. You wouldn't talk like that to any other Stunticon, would you? Same thing." Wildrider was almost beginning to wish Motormaster had been there to clear a path – he could have done more damage to an old-growth forest than an Insecticon, and much faster – but to his relief the trees began to thin out. Between their trunks he saw tiny human-built structures in the distance, in a valley floor. A flag or windsock, red as an Autobot sigil, fluttered in the breeze.

He scooped Geri off his shoulder and set her on the ground before she could do anything more than squeak in surprise. "I think we're there." On elbow- and knee-joints, hoping he wouldn't get too much dirt in them, he crawled closer, stopping when he felt a slight tremor through the cliff beneath him. Even roots a hundred years old couldn't entirely hold the thing together under his weight.

Wildrider lowered himself flat to the ground, both to reduce the pressure on the edge of the cliff and to stay as hidden as possible while he looked down at the valley floor sixty feet below. Geri put a hand on his side and felt her way to his shoulder again, dropping to her knees when she touched the wheel there.

"What does it look like?" she said.

Wildrider giggled. "It looks just like a regular ranch. Nuclear explosion my headlights!"

"Are you sure?" Geri whispered.

"Sure I'm sure! There's a house and, uh, some other smaller houses. They don't even have a fragging electric fence!" The fences which did surround some of the fields and the largest house were rickety-looking wooden things, and Wildrider knew he could turn them into splinters even without a forcefield.

He looked over the rest of the property, trying to spot anything which could be a defence or a weapon powerful enough to affect him, but all he saw were a few people leading horses out from the stables, strapping some kinds of weird-looking harnesses on the animals. _Maybe they'll go off for a ride and leave the place even more undefended_, he thought with all his usual optimism.

Just beyond the stable was a huge stretch of earth that looked dark and bare beside the fields, but to one side of that was a narrower rectangle of ground as smooth and dark as if it was covered with asphalt. Wildrider wondered for a moment what that was, before his audials picked up a soft humming sound he'd heard before. He looked up to see a dark speck in the sky. _A landing strip_, he thought. _Awesome! I get to take care of that fragging plane at the same time!_

A familiar excitement surged through his fuel lines like energon. He had felt that way ever since he came online for the first time, with the aftereffects of Vector Sigma's power still in his circuits like the echoes of an electric song. The other Stunticons went through some bowing-and-scraping routine that Megatron seemed to expect, but all Wildrider wanted was to stop talking and start _doing_ something, feel the world under his wheels and everything else in that world lying in ruins around him.

It was a drive to destroy, as fierce as Motormaster's hatred of the Autobots or Drag Strip's need to win at all costs. Wildrider didn't particularly want to be insane but he liked being a tornado on tires, and it was even more fun to do that with Geri looking either thunderstruck or exasperated at whatever he did. Which was one reason he kept trying crazier and more spectacular things; if she had been indifferent, it wouldn't have been the same.

He watched as the plane disgorged two passengers, who went over to the stables where a small herd of horses had now been outfitted with harnesses. More people came out from the ranchhouse, carrying weapons slung across their backs. From that distance, Wildrider couldn't see exactly what the weapons were, but he knew that if he could see them at all from so far away, they weren't likely to be just handguns.

And the people all wore the same colors – grey on the lower half, lighter and darker blue on the upper. _Uniforms,_ he thought. _Cops? No, there wouldn't be so many of them and they'd be using cars, instead of…_

The armed people swung themselves into the horses' saddles.

"They called in the cavalry!" Wildrider was delighted; it was like something out of the Wild West, and he had never before faced mounted enemies.

"The cavalry?" Geri said.

"There's a bunch of people on horses down there." Wildrider watched as they fanned out and got ready to do what looked like a patrol of the property. "Eight… ten… fifteen…" He stopped when he glanced at Geri. "Hey, don't worry, kiddo! It'll be like the scene in that ring movie where the elephants appear out of nowhere and squash the horses."

Geri's forehead wrinkled. "_The Return of the King_? Didn't the elephants die in the end?"

"…Not in the director's cut." Wildrider wondered what was the best way to get to the valley floor – without his thrusters he couldn't simply leap off. _Or should I lure them up here somehow? Yeah, that'd work better--_

"Did you hear something?" Geri said suddenly.

Wildrider listened, but the wind had picked up and all he heard was the rustling of leaves above and grass all around him, the purr of his engine and the far faint shouts from the valley as the humans called out to each other. The pause made him wonder where Streetwise was, though. Had the Protectobot warned the humans and then gone on to perform heroic deeds somewhere else? Or was he lurking on the property, waiting to strike?

_If he is, he might be among the other human vehicles._ There was a garage on the other side of the ranchhouse, but from where he was, Wildrider couldn't see most of it. He scrabbled backwards carefully and got up, twigs cracking under his feet.

"Where are you going?" Geri said.

"Just want a better look around." Wildrider took a few strides to the left, angling for a glimpse of the open garage. Four cars and a station wagon, but he didn't recognize any of--

Another engine thrummed as something raced forward, crunching the ground under its wheels. Wildrider spun around. A flash of white and pale blue burst from between two trees, zoomed up to Geri and transformed, grabbing her with one hand.

_Groove. 'Course, he's their scout, the one who gets there first!_ Wildrider switched to alt-mode as well to bring his guns into play, but it was already too late. The Protectobot was lighter and didn't collapse the edge of the cliff as he half-twisted to put Geri behind him; the gun in his other hand pointed straight at Wildrider. _Photon pistol._ Wildrider was suddenly unsure what to do. He could offline his optics to save them and simply charge ahead, but either Geri would be scrapped when he crashed into Groove or the Protectobot would easily evade him.

"Let her go, scootie!" He put as much warning as he could into his voice, wishing that he sounded like Motormaster in a cold fury. That was the kind of voice which came from the depths of an abyss, making everyone back away before they could fall in.

"Haven't you done enough to her already?" Groove's optics, brown rather than the Autobot blue, brightened a little. "Just back off, man."

"What the frag d'you think I've done to her other than looking after her?" Wildrider snapped, then realized that the Protectobot wouldn't believe him. And he had to do something before the rest of the strutless wonders converged on his position. He raised his voice. "Kiddo, that's one of the Protectobots protectobotting you. Want to explain the facts of life to him?"

Since Groove was between him and Geri, he couldn't see her, but she called out, "Thanks for telling me!" _Oh right, she can't see anyone's faction symbols._ "It's all right, he's not going to hurt me," she continued.

"Sorry," Groove said without taking his optics off Wildrider, "but you're better off not hanging with a Stunticon. Take it from me."

Wildrider didn't expect that to go down well, and he heard the change in Geri's voice when she replied, the edge under the politeness. "I'd like to decide that for myself. Would you mind putting me down?"

Without answering, Groove took a step back, pistol still held at the ready. Wildrider sidled behind a tree; the trunk was thick enough to block most of the blast if Groove fired. _Only one chance_, he thought as his engine revved nearly to redline, brakes straining to hold his wheels still.

Even without being able to see a thing, Geri seemed to be able to tell what was happening. "All right, then, can we please talk about this?" Wildrider thought she was one of the few humans he had ever encountered who could raise their voices without sounding as though they were yelling or screaming. "Fighting won't solve anything."

"Hey, it works for me!" Wildrider wondered just what she would have expected him to do against the humans at the construction company and their demolition machines. _Throw snowballs at them?_

There was a brief pause. "You're not helping," Geri called back. "And do you really think you can deal with the Protectobots and whatever Autobot reinforcements they call for and those riders at the ranch and the police, if they hear about this, all at the same time?"

"Yup."

The pause was much longer that time, and Wildrider laughed. Groove brought his other arm around to hold Geri up and speak to her. "See what I mean?" he said quietly and took another step back. "He's insane. And dangerous."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious!" Wildrider said cheerfully. "Now how about you tell her something she _doesn't_ know? I think you just might be less boring that-a-way."

Geri sighed, propping her elbows on Groove's thumb. "Scootie, he really hasn't harmed me."

"Um, the name's Groove. I think 'scootie' was meant as an insult."

Wildrider giggled again, but Geri's face went red. "Oh geez, I'm sorry."

"No prob," Groove said. A low branch swatted him on the top of the helm and he shook his head to dislodge leaves, though he didn't look away from Wildrider or lower his gun. "But like I said, you'll be safer with us. We can take you back home." His voice hardened. "And from the looks of you, someone hasn't been treating you right."

"Huh?" Suddenly Wildrider was not amused. "What the frag d'you think I am, a wimp? If I'd hit her, she'd have a lot worse damage than _that_."

"He didn't hit me, Groove," Geri said. "And I don't want to go anywhere with you. My father's being held prisoner in that ranch, and that's why we're here."

"Held prisoner?" At least that seemed to pause the Protectobot's retreat. "Why?"

"The ranch is owned by a Mr Stover, right?" Geri said. "He's been trying to have me kidnapped."

"Why? That doesn't make any sense."

Wildrider felt frustrated. He wouldn't have doubted Geri, but the two-wheels not only wanted to take her away, he didn't even seem to believe her. "Kiddo, he's just stalling for time until the other do-gooders get here." _Make him let go of you, before I do it myself!_

Geri twisted around in the circle of Groove's fingers and looked up at him. "All right, why don't you take me down there, then?"

"What?" Wildrider nearly leaped out from behind the tree. "Whose side are you on?"

"I'm not choosing sides!" Geri said sharply. "But this is the only way we can settle it without a fight and I don't want you to be hurt. Please, just let Groove and me go talk to Mr. Stover. If he's innocent, then we've got nothing to lose, right?"

Groove hesitated. "I guess we can do that."

"Thank you," Geri said, so gratefully that Wildrider _did_ feel like slapping her. Why was she always so prepared to go off with someone else at the first opportunity and leave him behind? "Just don't let him or anyone else get their hands on me."

"I could do that a whole lot better than any Autobots," Wildrider growled.

"Fair enough," Groove said to her, ignoring him. "But just so you know, we'd never harm any humans. That Stunticon's murdered at least fifteen people in the past few days."

"I'm sorry about that," Geri said. "But he still wouldn't hurt me, so please… just let him be."

"Oh, he won't have any problem doing that, kiddo. He's a weakling."

"A pacifist," Groove said evenly. "I don't like fighting. Which is better than being a psychotic terrorist any day of the week."

Geri's face set in an expression that said, _As far as I'm concerned, you're _both_ irritating_. "Could we go now?"

"Okay," Groove said and backed away steadily, still keeping his gun trained forward. As soon as he was far enough, he turned and loped away, low branches snapping against his shoulders, and Wildrider watched, fuming, as he disappeared among the trees.

* * *

"I'd give you a ride," Groove said, "but I transform into a motorbike. You wouldn't be able to see anything coming at us, and there'd be nothing to keep you safe."

"Thanks." Geri could see why they were called Protectobots, and she didn't mind being held in the circle of Groove's fingers; his grip was close but careful. She would rather have been with Wildrider, but she didn't want him to charge into battle and get shot. Or worse, panic anyone to the point where they harmed her father.

_If that hasn't happened already,_ she thought, curling her fingers into her palms. _Miss Andrews made it sound as though they were waiting for him to die._

Which was odd, now that she came to think about it. _Why would any kidnappers have to wait two months for a victim to die? Why not just kill him and get it over with?_

Before she could think about that, she felt Groove's hand tilt forward a little and the sounds of his feet changed from the crunch-rustle of dried vegetation to the rough scrape of bare ground. "We're out from the trees," she said. "Have they seen us?"

"How'd you know that?"

"I can feel the sun." The wind shifted and she caught the damp rich smell of freshly turned earth and the warm odor of horses. She breathed in more deeply, but the scent of expensive leather seats was gone.

"Yeah, they've seen us." Groove was still scrambling down what she guessed was a slope leading up to the cliff. "They're heading this way." Geri tensed. "It's cool. They won't do anything to an Autobot."

Geri still crouched down until her forehead was pressed to cool hard metal; at least she had that much between her and whoever might try to shoot her. She heard hooves thudding against the ground and one or two of the horses neighed as their riders halted them with a jangling of reins. Groove asked to speak to whoever was in charge and Geri listened as the hooves pounded away.

"Who are those people?" she said when she was sure they had gone.

"Looks like some kinda private security company to me."

_Of course,_ Geri thought, _someone this rich would have their own security service_. "Are any of them heading for Wildrider?" she said, hoping he wouldn't go crazy while she was away.

"Uh-huh," Groove said, "but don't be scared. I've radioed Streetwise and Blades. They'll keep him busy if he tries to attack anyone."

_That wasn't what I meant,_ Geri thought. She wondered if Wildrider would have been safer if she had asked him to come with her and Groove; maybe no one would have attacked him because he would have been with an Autobot. But knowing him, he would have bickered with Groove in what looked like a game of one-upmanship that had gone on for a long time. And she wasn't sure if Mr Stover – or anyone else, for that matter – would have been willing to talk in the presence of a Decepticon with a sanity deficiency.

"Do you want me to put you down?" Groove said. "There's no one nearby, but some dude who I'm guessing is the owner is going to be here in the next minute. There's a bodyguard with him."

Geri shook her head. "I'm safer here." Her pulse hammered at the thought of finally being face to face – or as close as she could get to it – with the person responsible for all she had gone through. She forced herself to breathe slowly and evenly. _Stay calm and talk sensibly, because it'll be difficult enough for anyone to believe a multi-millionaire businessman over a kid without the kid getting all emotional as well._

She didn't hear any footsteps coming up to them, but there was a soft, repeated sway-clack sound, like something heavy swinging from a strap. It came up to them, then halted.

"Was there something you needed, Autobot?" a man said.

"My name's Groove. Are you Mr. Stover?" Groove said. "Well, sir, I've got a girl here who thinks her father might be somewhere around here."

Stover's voice was slow and considered. _A careful voice_, Geri thought. "I'm aware of whoever's on my property," he said. "As you can see, I have excellent security. They haven't reported seeing any strangers – until now, of course."

"Yeah," Groove said. "I thought she was mistaken too."

_What?_ Geri's heart sank. She knew he hadn't really believed her, but she had never thought he would give in so fast. Wildrider would have taken her side over any other human's, whether they talked sense or not, but Groove obviously had no reason to do so. Was any way she could slip through his fingers? No, even if she did that, she certainly couldn't get far before either Stover or Groove caught her.

"Not entirely her fault, I suppose," Stover said. "According to the other Autobot who spoke to us, the girl's traveling with a Decepticon. It probably wanted to attack me, for some reason, and that was the best excuse it could come up with."

"I hear you on the wanting to attack part." Groove shifted his weight, tilting slightly to one side. "Why d'you think he'd need an excuse, though? I mean, 'cons generally don't bother with complicated reasons to attack anyone."

_He might be a pacifist, but he's not stupid._ Geri leaned against the solidity of metal, though she couldn't yet relax. She knew Stover would not be easily fazed.

"I don't know why Decepticons do things," he replied, "and I don't care. The one who's fixated on me for some reason has already cost us nearly a million dollars in property damage, and our insurance has gone through the roof. There are at least twenty injured SLS workers who'll demand compensation and sue us if they don't get it. You'll excuse me if I have greater worries than a deranged Decepticon and a child too young to know what she's doing."

The last sentence brought Geri lurching up, forgetting both her physical state and her fear. _I do know what I'm doing. I'm trying to save my father and stay alive. Even if I'm not the richest person on the planet and surrounded by my own personal security service, I didn't just imagine everything that happened in the last few days._ She gripped the edge of Groove's fingers and pulled herself to her feet.

"Mr Maramis told me you were responsible for having me kidnapped," she said, trying to keep her voice as calm and steady as she could, "though he didn't say why. If you're on the Forbes 400 list you don't need any money from--"

"What?" Stover said.

Something about his voice made her stop. Being blind meant she had to listen carefully to changes in tone to guess how people felt or reacted, and under Stover's flat control there was a sudden interest. _As though I'm telling him something new._

"I heard that you were very wealthy," she said slowly. She hoped he wouldn't ask where she had heard that; mentioning Swindle would not be a good idea.

When Stover replied, she felt sure he was smiling. His voice sounded much more relaxed. "Who exactly do you think I am?"

Geri felt sweat prickle on the nape of her neck; he was leading her into some trap, and yet how could she refuse to answer? For the first time she wondered if Swindle had lied to her. _They're called Decepticons for a reason._

"Mr. Emmett Stover," she said, keeping her voice above a whisper through an effort.

"Who's that?" Groove said. "This is Mr. Jonathan Stover."

_Swindle,_ Geri thought, feeling blood crawl hotly into her face. _He told us and I didn't realize it. He said Emmett Stover had a younger brother, and Mr Maramis never told me which of them had wanted me kidnapped. He just said "Mr Stover" and I assumed…_

The wave of heat passed, and suddenly she had never felt colder. Had she and Wildrider had followed the wrong trail, searched for the wrong person? Groove would never let her go to correct that mistake, and Wildrider only had a day or so left before he had to return to the other Decepticons.

"Emmett is my older brother," Jonathan Stover said, and she heard someone else laugh softly. "Do you still believe this girl's claims, Auto… er, Groove? She seems to be confused at best."

Geri couldn't reply – her mouth was dry and her throat had tightened – but she heard Groove say, "Maybe your brother would know what she's talking about." He didn't sound too convinced of it, though.

"Maybe. If you like, we can put her up inside – there's plenty of room and she looks as though she could do with a bed and a few square meals. Then I can get in touch with Emmett."

_He's trying to make Groove leave me with him._ That was enough for Geri to choke down her fear and reply, "Couldn't he come out here?"

"I'm afraid not. He's not here."

"Maybe we could go see him, then," Groove said. "My brothers or I could take her."

Geri heard Stover sigh. "He doesn't see people, and I'm surprised you'd do that. A child, especially a handicapped child, should be with her family or a foster family rather than running around with robots. If transportation is an issue, my pilot can take her back to wherever she came from."

_He really wants to get a hold of me._ Geri swallowed hard and thought, _Be very, very respectful._ "Please, Mr. Stover, if you don't mind my asking, why doesn't your brother see people?"

"He's not very well."

_If I made the wrong assumption once, I could have done it again_. Geri remembered Miss Andrews saying, "she'll be released as soon as he dies", and she had thought that meant her father. But the housekeeper had never actually named a name, and why would anyone need to wait for a prisoner to die?

_If I'm wrong now, I'm wrong, and I've already been wrong once in front of him_. "Mr. Stover, would your brother happen to be dying?"

The pause was shattered as a sound like thunder exploded far to the left. Geri jolted, grabbing Groove's fingers for support as more blasts rang out and there was a sharp ugly _crrrrnch_ like a bone being broken slowly. The screaming of a siren rose above the chaos.

"The Decepticon," Jonathan Stover said, and it was not a question.

_Stunticon_, Geri corrected automatically.

"He's targeting your security people." Groove's voice was tense and distant, and before Geri could say anything he set her gently on the ground. "Stay there," he said. "I've got to help them."

Metal components shifted and slid together, and an engine rumbled to life. Then a spray of bare earth peppered her shins as the motorcycle raced away.

A hand closed around her upper arm. Again she heard the sway-clank as a heavy weight swung and thumped.

"McLean," Stover said, "engage the Decepticon. I'll deal with her."

* * *

**Taipan Kiryu**: Thanks for reminding me of just how tough the Protectobots can be – that was something I needed to keep in mind for the end of this story. Interestingly, Groove as well as First Aid is a pacifist – according to the TF Wiki, anyway – but I figure that as their scout, Groove is going to be involved in battle sooner or later. It's just that he doesn't enjoy fighting and would rather try to find a better solution to problems, unlike First Aid who won't do it at all (Streetwise and Blades kind of balance the other two out, though).

Groove is a loner as well, which seems to be rare for a combiner team IMO. The Protectobots really did deserve an origin episode which showed their different strengths and weaknesses.

And even if they believe that Geri's with Wildrider voluntarily, they're not going to simply leave such a situation alone. To them, this is like seeing someone on a bridge ready to jump – even if the person's doing that of their own free will, it would be wrong to just walk away and abandon them.

**Grey Grapevines** : Thanks for the review! Strap yourself in – it gets bumpy from here on out. :)


	16. In which Wildrider scatters the cavalry

**Chapter 16: In which Wildrider scatters the cavalry**

The cavalry split up. Five of them stayed on the lower ground, unslung their shotguns and looked up at the cliff and the trees high above their heads. Wildrider didn't think they could see him – his ashes-and-embers paintjob wasn't easy to spot in shadows, and the trees cast plenty of those. But considering that the rest of the cavalry were riding up the slope Groove had taken to descend, shotguns held at the ready, he knew he couldn't hide for long.

_All right then, let's get it on. _

The first thing to do was to get out from those trees, give himself enough room to maneuver. Even if those horses could turn on a dime and weren't bothered by shotgun blasts, they probably weren't used to a Ferrari charging at them.

Cautiously, he began to back away through the trees, heading away from the ranch and towards the open ground.

It was the flash that caught his attention, a burst of red-and-blue light that looked bright even in the sunlight further away. Wildrider pivoted, willing his gun out of subspace before he remembered he had lost it. The Protectobot interceptor had caught the movement, he realized as it turned in his direction and accelerated up the slope.

Wildrider backed away and thudded into a tree, dislodging a bird's nest that landed on his head. He brushed it away without looking, trying to think. Streetwise was still at least twenty yards away and would have to transform to reach him – the trees were too thick – but the cavalry were fanning out now, slipping between the trunks more easily. He didn't need to transform to charge them, since his sheer weight and momentum would do it, but shotgun blasts were more powerful than handgun fire and he didn't want to take too many of those. Above all, he wanted to fire first, to take out as many of them as he could before engaging them in close quarters.

He kept backing away, but that was a noisy process – dry twigs crunched under his feet and another bird overhead took off shrieking as if it was trying to advertise his position. Not that Streetwise was any quieter; even when he transformed, his siren kept squalling and Wildrider heard him call out to the cavalry to stay back. But Streetwise wasn't alone. There was a buzz of rotors overhead, and Wildrider looked up to see the helicopter high in the sky.

He glanced around and realized how close he was to the edge of the cliff. _Can't jump off with my thrusters offline, but where do I go from here?_ Streetwise was closing in from the left, Blades hovered overhead to the left and was starting to descend. _If only all these slagging trees weren't in the way--_

_That's it! _

Wildrider transformed and backed up a little, though even that brought a taillight scraping against something slimy that was growing on the bark of a tree. From where he was, he could see past even the thickest of the trees. The ground – covered with a brownish carpet of dry vegetation – dropped off less than ten feet from him. Beyond was a green spread of grass and the tiny dark shapes of people on horseback, so far and low that they looked like miniature toys.

For a moment Wildrider was disappointed – if not for the Protectobots so nearby, he could have pretended he was Blast-Off, played sniper and taken the humans out from that height. For now, though, there was only one thing he could do, and he did it.

His lasers jabbed out and struck a tree-trunk. The wood turned black instantly, burning and crumbling away, and the tree began to tilt – in the wrong direction. Wildrider transformed hastily and slapped his good hand against the trunk, which was heavier than he had expected. He's given away his position by then, and a few shotguns fired, but the trees blocked the blasts and the humans weren't near enough to do any damage.

Blades was closer, though. He heard branches snap, leaves crushed as the copter came down fast and hard; for all his ability to fly, that particular Protectobot preferred fighting on the ground, at close quarters. _Catch me if you can_, Wildrider thought as he pushed at the tree with all his strength. It rocked on the destabilized trunk and then began to slowly topple in the other direction, out over the edge of the cliff. Heartwood split with a thick _crrrrnch_.

"Woo-hooooo!" Wildrider transformed and revved his engine. Cypress Hill's "Insane in the Brain" began to blast from his speakers. He sped forward, bounced over a thick log half-buried in the earth and landed on the trunk of the descending tree, racing forward along it as it came down. The bark was so rough that it gave his tires plenty of grip.

"Hey, if a tree falls in the forest and only the Protectobores hear it, does anyone give a--" Before he could complete that, the topmost branches thudded down on the valley floor in a green spray, and the impact nearly tossed him off his impromptu bridge. Stunticon reflexes compensated just in time. He rode the tree for nearly ten feet more, then leaped off on its far side to give himself that much more cover as the cavalry rode up.

_Next on "When Lumberjacks Attack"…_ He transformed and delivered a roundhouse kick to the "bridge", making sure he struck it with the entire length of his foot so that rather than breaking the wood (or his foot), he would send the tree through the air to smash into the cavalry. It would have worked if Streetwise, high on the cliff, hadn't grabbed the other end of the tree just in time. Wildrider's kick dislodged it from his grip, but the tree only thudded down to the valley floor in a cloud of dust and dry earth, rather than sailing through the air like a battering-ram turned sideways.

Still, it halted the cavalry and Wildrider seized the advantage. Yelling at him to stop, Streetwise drew a weapon from subspace, but Wildrider had already transformed again by then. He pivoted and tore off towards the ranch.

Only a few of the mounted humans were in the way and they were too busy dodging his lasers to even aim their shotguns, but another one, mounted on a huge palomino, galloped up. The weapon he unslung was larger and bulkier than a shotgun. Wildrider didn't have more than an instant to note that – and not enough time to recognize the weapon – before a incoming flash of white caught his optics. Groove raced forward, vaporators flipping up to fire at him.

_I might've known he'd ditch Geri as soon as he saw these cowboys in trouble!_ Wildrider scored a hit, and one of his lasers sheared cleanly through a foreleg. A spotted horse went down screaming. Wildrider veered at the same time, nearly skidding on two tires as he put the fallen human between him and Groove, but that exposed his other side to the palomino's rider.

In the second before he could accelerate out of the way, the human whipped his weapon up to shoulder level and fired.

In the second before the shot hit, Wildrider realized just what the weapon was – a grenade launcher.

The explosion against his side nearly deafened him. At first he didn't feel anything beside an almost solid wave of heat, and then that gave way to the agony of armor torn away down to the rawness of exposed circuits. The air felt oddly cool against lubricant-slick metal and bare wires.

Wildrider reeled out of the way, speeding up through sheer inertia. He had slammed the accelerator before he had taken the force of the shot, and it would take more than even a grenade to make him slow down. His normally erratic trajectory was even more wobbling and uneven, though, and that saved him as the second shot struck the ground to his right and exploded. Flecks of earth and shrapnel hit him, but compared to the effects of the first grenade they were nothing.

He gained some ground, hardly noticing where he was going – his vision was foggy with static – and wheeled around to face the palomino as the human reloaded. DVDs spilled out of his front seat on to the trampled ground. He wondered for a dazed moment why that was happening, before he realized that one of his doors was gone.

_No wonder it hurts,_ he thought as his optics cleared and his speakers began to grate out The Retrosic's "Bloodsport". _But I'm not going down so easily._

The human raised the rocket launcher again. He'd bought the rest of the cavalry time to regroup, Wildrider realized as the other horses galloped up behind the palomino. Beyond them, Streetwise was racing down the slope of the cliffside, but Wildrider didn't spare him more than a glance; the grenade launcher was a far closer threat.

His guns could have taken the palomino down and killed the human as well, but before he could use them, the rest of the cavalry reached their leader and surged around him. His engine's snarl rose to a pitch that raked at his audials, but the sound of the horses nearly drowned it out. Hooves thudded against the ground, a drumbeat so hard that Wildrider felt it through his tires, and the air was thick with dust and smoke. There were too many horses in the way for him to target the palomino, but he saw its human rise in the stirrups to target him with the grenade launcher.

"Frag you and the horse you rode in on!" Wildrider screamed and hurtled forward. He fired at full force, then slewed hard to the right to avoid the oncoming stampede. Most of the horses missed him, but he slammed into a smaller bay on the outside of the herd.

Bone crunched and a headlight broke. Blood splattered over his windscreen as the bay's rider all but bounced off his roof. Wildrider screamed again, though not in exhilaration; he hadn't realized that horses were so _heavy_, especially when their speed added to their momentum. The rider's body falling to the ground gave him an idea, though, and he braked to a halt.

Streetwise raced across the valley floor at a speed that Wildrider didn't think the Protectobot was capable of, and Blades was flying towards him as well, but the injured human was closer. Wildrider transformed, staggering from his injuries, and grabbed the back of what felt like a bulletproof vest. He held the human before him like a shield, tried to clamp his other hand around the human's throat and remembered too late that half the fingers on that hand didn't work any longer.

The cavalry and Protectobots weren't to know that, though, so he just slapped his hand to the human's front – which was enough to tell him that his hostage was a woman. "Stay where you are or I'll rip her arms off!" he yelled.

* * *

"Come with me," Jonathan Stover said.

Geri had no choice but to go with him. Even though she was sure he was alone, it wouldn't do much good for her to try to pull away if she couldn't see where to run. And although she was nearly twelve, she wasn't very big for her age; Stover could simply knock her out and carry her if she struggled.

So she allowed him to lead her away – his grip on her arm was hard but not painful – though she couldn't stop herself from saying, "Miss Andrews said they were waiting for someone to die. That's your brother she was talking about--"

Fingernails dug deeply into her bare arm and she gasped. "Be quiet," Stover said and continued to pull her along. Geri blinked, determined not to tear up but hoping he wouldn't do that to her again.

He half-led and half-dragged her away. In the distance she heard an explosion, the guttural scream of engines and incoherent cries, the kind of sounds she associated with Wildrider no matter what he was doing. She wondered if he had seen her. _Maybe I should drop something to show which way I've gone,_ she thought but before she could kick off one of her shoes, Stover stopped abruptly.

"That's far enough," he said. His voice was taut but distracted. "Scream."

"Huh?" Geri was almost as disconcerted by her response as by the command; _good grief, first I get used to crazy driving and blowing things up and now I'm started to _talk _like him_. "I mean… scream what?"

"Just scream!" He gave her arm a hard shake.

"Why?" Geri had never been able to make a lot of sound when she was afraid; her throat would always feel as though it was closing up and her mouth would go dry. She thought she could scream a lot more easily if she was relaxed and safe than if she was in danger. "Why don't you scream?"

She felt a hard cold touch at the side of her throat, just beneath her jaw. "Because I'm not the one with a gun pointing at me," Stover said.

Although having a bullet inches away from her brain made Geri feel as though she could barely speak, much less scream, her mind seemed to work all the faster as if to make up for that. _Why should I scream? Because if I do, Wildrider might hear, which means he'll charge over here like a bat out of hell. And Mr. Stover wouldn't want him to do that unless… unless this is a trap of some sort._

Which made her even more determined not to scream, but before she could think what to do instead, Stover's fingers on her arm tensed, pressing tendons almost to bone. Geri winced, but the gun was suddenly gone and he hauled her away so fast that she nearly tripped. "Move it!" he snapped.

_What's going on? Why didn't I just go to the police when I had the chance? I'm such a--_

The explosion was close at hand, an earsplitting detonation that sent a wave of heat and dust rolling over them. Geri staggered and dropped to her knees as Stover released her. The earth beneath her palms felt bare, dry and crumbly. She curled her fingers into it, thinking of grabbing a handful of it and throwing it in Stover's eyes, but she realized a moment later that that kind of trick worked better when you saw what you were aiming at.

She felt something else under her fingertips, though – a line or wire buried in the ground – but before she could tug on it or trace it, a hot mist settled on her. Nearby, Stover sounded as though he was unlocking a door and then the hinges squeaked as it swung open, but for a moment all Geri could focus on was whatever had landed on her – a fine spray that smelled coppery, like heated pennies. _Or blood._

"What the heck just happened?" she said.

"One of the horses." Stover's voice was distracted again. "Get in here." He caught her arm again, tugging her into a coolness that meant they were inside a building of some sort – an outbuilding, Geri thought, breathing in the scent of hay and feedstuffs and oil.

"Go on," Stover said, prodding her ahead of him. "There are steps."

Nearly on her hands and knees, Geri felt her way down a flight of stone steps, wondering whether he was going to lock her up in a cellar. She didn't dare stop moving, though, in case he kicked her down the steps and she broke her neck. The sounds of battle were muffled now, though, and she swallowed hard before she said over her shoulder, "Your brother needs an organ transplant, right? He's dying because he hasn't found one yet."

"You're five steps from the ground. Keep moving."

His refusal to answer only unnerved her even more. She wished she could figure out what to do, but her mind seemed to have gone blank with fear; all she could think of doing was begging him to let her go. _As if that would work._

She straightened up a little and put her hand to the side of the stairwell to feel the rest of her way down. This was the part she had to be sure of, the answer she had searched for from the start. "And… and that's why you need me, right? Because I'm a match?"

"Turn left."

_This place is too large_. She could tell that just from the echo of Stover's voice from the walls. "This isn't a cellar. Please, could you tell me what it is?"

She wasn't sure if it was the politeness or the fact that she wasn't asking a question that could incriminate him if he answered it, but he replied as he put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her forward. "It's a fallout shelter."

Geri could have groaned aloud. So that's what they meant when they told us the ranch could survive a nuclear explosion. _And it's below the ground, so will anyone know that I'm here?_

Stover unlocked a door and shoved her past it, making her stagger. "Geri!" she heard a familiar voice say.

_That we're here_, Geri thought for a stunned moment. "Dad?"

* * *

Streetwise stopped with a screech of brakes and transformed, though he didn't draw a weapon. Wildrider's spirits lifted at once, despite the spark of exposed circuits and fuel trickling from where his door had been. The Protectobots weren't likely to harm him while he held an injured human hostage, although he wasn't sure about the rest of the cavalry.

To his relief, though, only about half of the horses were still online. When they had come at him in a herd and he had shot one of them, another had stumbled over the body and was just staggering up. Three more horses had panicked entirely. Two of them raced towards the cliff – one dragging its rider's body with a foot twisted through a stirrup, much to Wildrider's delight – while the third galloped towards the stables.

The grenade launcher was still aimed at him, though, and the palomino horse looked as though it had been carved from sandstone. Five or six other humans, still mounted, formed a straggling rank around the palomino, shotguns in hand, but they watched him as if frozen in place. Wildrider would dearly have liked to see where Geri had gone, but he couldn't risk taking his optics off either the humans or the Protectobots.

"Let her go." Streetwise's voice was hard and authoritative. Blades dropped out of the sky, transforming as well so that he landed beside the interceptor, but Groove was too busy carrying a couple of injured humans away to safety. Iridescent trickles of lubricant and fuel on the ground reflected sunlight, and made the patches of blood-soaked earth look even darker in comparison.

"Once the lot of you stand down." Wildrider was aware that they would never do so, and he tried to think what to do next. The pause in the battle, the eye of the storm, wouldn't last long, and the woman hung so limply in his grip that he was half afraid she was dead already. That wouldn't make her a very good hostage, and he hoped desperately that no one was sneaking up on him from behind. "Take your little pony squad and get lost!" he said to the human with the grenade launcher.

Instead of answering, the human raised the weapon, stock to shoulder. The muzzle pointed straight at him. _He'll fire faster than I can dismember my hostage, not that that'll help me. One distraction, that's all I need, just one--_

Another explosion smashed the silence and shuddered through the ground like an earthquake. All the humans glanced in that direction. _Good enough._ Wildrider lifted the woman's body and threw it straight at the man with the grenade launcher.

"Catch!" he yelled, transforming, and slammed his accelerator flat as the impact took both humans down. Blades sprang ahead at him while Streetwise drew a weapon, but neither of them were as fast. Wildrider roared ahead at the clustered horses, lasers spitting as he did so. The horses whinnied in terror, reins lashing as the humans tried to get out of the way, though two of the shotguns fired.

One missed, but the second blast punched into one of Wildrider's windows. At such close range, the glass turned to a spray of red splinters. Wildrider had never been one to suffer in silence, so he shrieked, "Now I'll show you some _real_ horsepower!" as he drove over the fallen grenade launcher and the man who had fired it. Another Stunticon would have known when he was yelling in pain rather than out of sheer enjoyment, since he didn't laugh so much in the first case, but he doubted the Protectobots would be able to tell the difference.

_The 'bots_. He was only safe from them as long as he was near the humans, but his headlong rush had carried him far from the downed horses and their riders. He braked, spinning around violently. DVDs flew out of his open passenger compartment, much to his annoyance. _Maybe I can pick them up later_, he thought as he took a single glance at the battlefield.

The horses were all either down for the count or galloping away as fast as they could. _Just like the ring film! And now that I come to think about it, they should make a movie starring me and the rest of the gang. Well, all of us except Breakdown. _He'd heard there was some secret human government agency specifically set up to make sure that no one portrayed Decepticons as anything other than the enemy, so Hollywood was out, but he felt sure they could find an independent filmmaker or two. And such a movie might be very popular on the black market. _Maybe Swindle could set something up._

He rocketed forward again. Streetwise had moved before the fallen humans, though, so Wildrider did the circling maneuver that all the Stunticons loved, mostly because it was so much fun to watch the Autobot in the center looking confused and scared as he tried to aim at targets he could hardly see. Now, even though Wildrider would have liked to have some rest and energon (and repairs and a new paintjob and a thorough wash and a polish and waxing, while watching a movie), he didn't dare stop moving. His speed increased to two hundred miles an hour, raising a cloud of smoke and dust.

"Round and round and round I go! I never stop, I never slow!"

Something had hooked around his tire and bounced beneath him, slamming him with each bounce, but he had driven home with Autobot and human body parts snagged in his undercarriage before, so it didn't bother him too much. The human bits were just icky, but he kept the Autobot ones in a box under his berth.

He began to narrow the circle, closing in on Streetwise, who kept pivoting and trying to get a bead on him. Something about the 'bot gnawed at Wildrider's attention, though. _That gun's kinda big for a photon pistol_, he thought, but he couldn't look for longer than a split second in case the 'bot blinded him again. _No, I'll half-spin and fire at him first_. That was the other good thing about doing what Drag Strip called the terror-go-round – the 'bot in the center really didn't anticipate it when the Stunticons broke the pattern.

Before he could do that, Streetwise fired at him. It wasn't the burst of brilliant, unbearable light that Wildrider had expected, but a beam of red lasers that tore through his bumper. If the rays' spread had been even a little wider, they would have punched holes through both of his front tires.

Wildrider slammed the brakes, hissing in pain and shock. His bumper hung at an angle, nearly severed. His rear wheels slewed hard and threw up clots of earth, but he hardly noticed either that or the brake system warnings in his diagnostic queue as he transformed and stared at the weapon in the Protectobot's hand. It was his own scattershot gun, a weapon more than capable of blowing his head off.

"Time to stop," Streetwise said quietly.

* * *

**dixiegurl13** : It's all the difference between being with someone who'll do the right thing and being with someone who'll do whatever it takes to defend you, and to hell with the right thing. :) I think Wildrider's going to need some rescuing too, though. Glad to hear you're enjoying the story!

**Fire From Above** : Exactly, "casual acts of mayhem" are completely normal for Wildrider. Part of the appeal of writing him, especially since he doesn't do any of it out of malice – it's just routine fun for him. And it makes a great contrast with both Geri and the Protectobots.

Thanks for your reviews!

**Steve**: Hey, good to see you on board! Hope you're liking it.

**Taipan Kiryu** : I like to leave some details up to the readers' imagination, but your imagination is quite right. I also think Drag Strip took Wildrider's punishment, which is one reason Wildrider is much more indulgent of him than the other Stunticons are (and which is also why Wildrider goes along with the conspiracy in the fic where Motormaster 'disappears'). If I ever do a 28s meme, I'll describe the aftermath of Wildrider's return to the base.

What you said about Wildrider not doing well on his own makes me want to see what effect that kind of solitude has on Motormaster, though. Especially since he's not sociable and won't reach for the nearest Stunticon substitute to keep him company. As for Wildrider, he'll find out that even after his six days are up, he doesn't just forget about Geri, which he finds confusing at first. As you said, she was the perfect audience for him. For two such different personalities, they complement each other pretty well.

Mr Stover does have a hidden agenda, but that all becomes clear in the next chapter even if it's not so in this one. Thanks so much for reading and commenting!

**meteor prime** : Groove was probably thinking that the security forces (several people) were in immediate danger from Wildrider, whereas Geri (one person) wasn't in immediate danger from Stover. After all, Stover seemed to be behaving normally and rationally, as opposed to Wildrider's usual insanity. Groove makes up for that mistake later, though.

**Lady Sunflower** : Appreciate your review! :)


	17. In which Wildrider plays ambulance

**Chapter 17: In which Wildrider plays ambulance**

Wildrider couldn't move. That a Protectobot was ready to kill him was surprising enough, but that he was going to be made into paper clips courtesy of his own gun was a shock. He was only about half a dozen feet away from the barrel of that gun, but it might as well have been a mile; if he sprang ahead and tried to wrench it out of the 'bot's hands, Streetwise would still have enough time to fire.

_Talk, then, buy some time for myself!_ "You pull that trigger and you'll have my team to deal with." His voice came out in a low snarl. "And if one of us is dead, the rest've got nothing to lose."

Which was true enough. If he died, Menasor would be gone as well, which meant the Stunticons' use to the Decepticon Army would be somewhat… limited. That and the knowledge that one of their team had been taken from them would be more than enough. Wildrider felt sure that Motormaster and the others would go on a rampage, destroying anything and anyone they could until the Autobots deactivated them as well.

He didn't think the Protectobots wanted anything except the last part to happen, but Streetwise's optics only narrowed a little. "The rest of you will be dealt with too, eventually," he said. "For now, this won't bring back any of the humans you murdered. But it'll ensure that you don't hurt anyone else."

Wildrider stared into the muzzle of his own gun and thought, _No, this can't be happening_. Nothing more intelligent or imaginative came to mind, mostly because he had never before believed an Autobot would execute him. Kill him while on a chase or in a battle, sure, but not calmly and coldly look him in the optics and pull a trigger while he was unarmed. Even that one time when they had all been captured by the Autobots, Optimus Prime had given them some soppy slag about "possible rehabilitation".

Though Wildrider thought Prime just might have changed his mind after they had broken out of the brig and shot some 'bots.

"Do it!" Blades said. "At least we'll never have to deal with Menasor again!"

Desperation swept over Wildrider, making it even more difficult for him to think. He was instants away from reflexively opening a radio comm to Motormaster, not that that would help him, but at least his team would know who was responsible for his death. They would know he was dead whether he was in contact with them or not, though. The gestalt link held them together, as it had done from their creation onward, and they would all feel it when that shattered.

Stupidly, he remembered that he still had Breakdown's latest issue of _Mettle_ and Dead End's bottle of Turtle Wax Gloss Guard. _I forgot to return those. Now they'll never get 'em back. _

"Streets, wait!" Groove raced up to them and transformed, although neither Streetwise's stare or aim wavered. "Something's not right here. Don't shoot him yet."

"What d'you mean, something's not right?" Blades said as he came to stand on Streetwise's other side.

Groove gestured into the distance. "One of those horses ran over that way and there was an explosion. I think the horse was killed." His optics dimmed.

_So? Lots more where that came from._ Wildrider would have shaken his head in disgust if he hadn't known even that small movement would attract attention; trust that Protectobot to get mushy over a slab of smelly, hairy-skinned meat on four legs. _They're not even as fast as a car, for Primus's sake. _

"So?" Blades said.

_Haha, even one of his brothers agrees with me!_ Feeling a little better, Wildrider glanced around while trying not to move his head. Nothing on the trampled ground was close enough for him to reach and use as a weapon, but there was something snagged on one of his wheels, banged up and covered with dirt.

_The grenade launcher,_ he thought with a sudden hope.

"I think this place is booby-trapped," Groove said slowly. "And I left that girl with Mr. Stover near the stables, but I can't see either of them now."

"You sure it was the _horse_ that blew up?" Wildrider said.

As he had expected, the Protectobots instinctively glanced in the direction of the stables. For an instant their attention was off him, and in that instant he yanked the grenade launcher away from his tire so hard that the strap broke. He threw himself forward just as Streetwise turned back to him.

Wildrider didn't even try to fire; the grenade launcher was designed for human hands, meaning it was far too small for him to operate. Instead he brought the weapon up in an overhand arc as if throwing a javelin. The stock and ammunition chamber jammed hard against the muzzle of his own gun just as Streetwise pulled the trigger.

The grenade launcher absorbed the full force of the blast and exploded with such force that it sent Streetwise sprawling backwards and blew most of Wildrider's hand off. A scream escaped him before he could stop himself, but having Motormaster for a commander had given him a high pain threshold. He scrabbled back up, ignoring the raw agony where his fingers had been, and flung himself on top of Streetwise.

The Protectobot was in a little better shape and he actually tried to bring the gun up again, but Wildrider was too used to close-quarters brawling; he'd done enough of it with Drag Strip. A vicious head-butt smashed one of Streetwise's optics and made his whole body convulse fiercely but uselessly. Wildrider half-twisted and shoved one leg across Streetwise to hold him down, then groped with his remaining hand for his gun. He couldn't bend half the fingers on that hand, but it didn't matter. No one took what was his.

Recovering fast, Streetwise hit out at him. Wildrider took the punch on the side of his jaw, turning with it as best he could – that was another skill Motormaster had inadvertently taught him – and shoved his leaking stump into the Protectobot's remaining optic. Sparks and lubricant and hydraulic fluid combined were enough to blind Streetwise for a moment, and his grip on the scattershot gun loosened. Wildrider subspaced it with a thought and slammed the side of his forearm down on Streetwise's throat, leaning his weight on it.

Something crashed down on his back with such force that the armor glass of his rear windshield shattered. Wildrider howled, but threw the last of his strength into rolling off Streetwise – just in time. Blades brought the sharpened rotor down again but halted it just before it would have split Streetwise in two.

Wildrider tried to scramble away, fighting to transform; each time he thought of doing so, the pain crested to an intensity he couldn't bear. Red warnings flashed through his diagnostic queue and his core temperature was rising as his systems worked frantically to cope with multiple injuries. He knew he was in danger of going into shock, but he was too tired to stave that off as well.

"Blades, stop!" Groove was suddenly between them, and Wildrider thought of shoving him into the copter before he caught a movement in his peripheral vision. One of the humans was riding up to them on a black horse, though none of the Protectobots seemed to have seen that yet. "We have to find that girl first. She's not where I left her, and I think…" He stopped as the human reached them.

Streetwise struggled up slowly, leaning on Groove for support. He was covered with dirt, scorch marks and grey scrapes of paint, one broken optic trickling lubricant, but Wildrider knew his own condition was far worse. With both hands offline, he couldn't even fire a weapon, and although he knew his self-repair system would seal the stump over so he wouldn't leak to death, there wasn't much else it could do.

And the lull in the battle was more unnerving than the struggle; at least when he was fighting for his life, he could be sure of staying conscious. Now a wave of exhaustion swept over him so strongly that it drowned even the pulses of pain. _No, I won't go into stasis lock. Won't won't won't._

The reflexive pull of air through his vents hitched irregularly and he forced autonomic control over it, focusing on long steady intakes and smooth expulsions. Being able to do something, anything, helped a little, and his mind cleared enough that he could glance at his diagnostic queue. That time, he didn't bother converting any of the estimated repair times into terrestrial units; he had a feeling his time had run out.

_Fragging thrusters still offline, too,_ he thought. _Doesn't matter. I didn't need my hands to slag the Protectobint, did I?_ And as soon as the pain died down a little, he would transform and find Geri.

Reins jangled and the horse stopped. The human dismounted, though without bothering to unsling a shotgun, and came towards them, stopping about ten feet away.

"My name is Karen." She glanced from the Protectobots to Wildrider, lifting her head – even on his knees, he was taller than she was. "I work for Emmett Stover."

* * *

"Geri," Jonathan Stover said.

It was the first time he had used her name. Geri felt her father's arms tighten around her, but she turned as if Stover had pulled a string. She knew that he would never have spoken to her for any reason other than to further his own aims.

"Who else knows?" he said.

"Just Wildrider." Her father put a hand over hers and she felt his finger trace a question mark on her palm, a sign that she needed to explain a little further. "The Decepticon who saved me."

That got her two question marks, but she knew her explanation had satisfied Stover when he he spoke again; she could hear the change in his voice. "Good. No one's likely to believe a Decepticon."

Geri said nothing. There was too much evidence linking Stover to her disappearance, but she wasn't about to panic a man with a gun, not while she and her father were both his hostages. She breathed in slowly and deeply to calm herself, smelling fresh sweat and a faint sharpness like chemicals. Bleach or cordite or some mixture of the two? She wasn't sure.

Her father move her to one side so he was between her and Stover, and Geri felt the wall at her back. Something soft touched her ankle and she sank down tiredly, feeling for whatever it was. _A sleeping bag._ That wasn't good; if her father had been a prisoner here for so long, then they certainly weren't likely to get out by themselves now.

"What is it you want from us?" her father said, though his voice sounded as tired as if he had asked that many times before without getting much of an answer.

"To stay here for some time," Jonathan Stover said. _Just about two months,_ Geri thought, _enough time for a man to die slowly._ "I'll compensate both of you for it. You'll have enough money to send your daughter to a school which could help her, college too if she wants it, anything--"

The roar that thudded through the walls cut him off. Geri shivered involuntarily, feeling the blast as much as she heard it and realizing how close it was if they could hear it in a nuclear shelter. She put her arms around her father's neck as if holding on to him, but that allowed her to whisper in his ear when the muffled thunder of the next explosion rang out.

"Any way we can get out of here?" she said softly.

"He told me the place is trapped – it can be blown up from outside…" There was a third _whoom_, closer now, and Geri thought it sounded as though someone was already doing that. "…and he's got a gun."

As the echoes of the explosion died away, she heard Stover take a step back. "You've got a choice," he said after a long pause, as if he had waited to make sure there would be no other interruptions. "Either you agree to my terms and you'll walk out of here eventually. Or you don't and you won't. I stand to gain more if you're alive, but if you're dead at least you'll take someone else with you. So what's it to be?"

Before her father could reply, Geri heard something thud softly on the stairs and and Stover's heel rasped against the ground as he turned. "Who's there?"

* * *

_Humans,_ Wildrider thought, _can always surprise you._ He supposed it came of them being so weird and unpredictable. Now, even after he had taken down all the rest of the cavalry, Karen stood only a few yards away and didn't even reach for her shotgun. Other than the fact that she had to crane her neck to meet everyone's optics, she might have been dealing with other humans.

Wildrider wasn't sure if she was what humans would have considered attractive – her black hair was drawn into a knot behind her head and her almond-shaped eyes were just as dark – but something about her composure reminded him of Geri. So he said nothing as she continued to speak.

"Emmett hired me to join Vanguard, the Stover security force, so that I could report any news of a girl called Geraldine Lombardi to him," she said. "I take it she was in your custody?"

Groove hesitated, then nodded. "She was. I left her with Mr Jonathan Stover when I thought the security force needed help."

"Way to go!" Wildrider was unable to resist. "And after she trusted you to keep her safe! I'd applaud, but--"

"Shut up!" Blades said. "As far as I'm concerned, you're a mass murderer. Execution is too good for you."

Wildrider laughed. "At least I'm not dumb enough to abandon a blind kid. Is that how you usually protect people, or did you ditch her because she wanted to stay with me?"

"That's enough!" Streetwise snapped, then spoke more normally. "Could you tell us what's going on here, and why your employer needs to know about this girl?"

Karen had hooked her thumbs into the loops of her belt, and now she glanced down at her left wrist. It was a fleeting look, but Wildrider knew at once that she was checking the time. "Emmett is dying," she said bluntly. "He hoped to receive a transplant, but he's got a very rare blood and tissue type. He exhausted all the normal methods of searching for a suitable donor half a year ago, and then tried some unorthodox methods."

_The pieces are finally coming together_, Wildrider thought, wishing Geri could be there to hear. _Never mind, I'll explain it all to her later._ "Like the project on blind people?"

"I wasn't told of any specific project, but he could and would have obtained any such data on any prospective donors – especially if it included details of their blood groups and genetic makeup and so on. He finally did locate a match, but the doctor who sold it to him turned out to be a double-dipper."

"What's that?" Groove said.

The corner of Karen's mouth twitched, like a grin cut off before it started. "The kind of person who gets paid by both sides. He went to Emmett's brother as well."

"I see," Streetwise said slowly. Wildrider would have liked to say the same thing – preferably in as pompous and all-seeing a tone – but he had a feeling there was still something he didn't understand. "Mr Jonathan Stover has another agenda, am I right?"

"You are." Karen pushed a loose strand of hair away from her face. "If Emmett dies, his brother stands to inherit… a great deal."

_Humans can be so backstabbing,_ Wildrider thought. _You'd think they'd taken lessons from Starscream_. He would never have done that of thing to one of his teammates, not even Motormaster. Much as they all hated the Stunticon leader, he would have confronted Motormaster openly instead, even though he knew very few mechs could do that and live.

"On the other hand, Emmett's well aware of this," Karen continued. "He's made it clear that if there's evidence the girl is dead, then he's dead too and hasn't got anything left to lose. So he might well take everything he owns down with him. But if anyone hands the girl over to him alive, they stand to gain… a great deal. It's only that which has saved her from being dumped in a river with a cinderblock round her neck."

"Yeah, right!" Wildrider said. "When I found her, a couple of thugs were trying to shoot her."

"They must've been trying to scare her," Karen said dismissively. "Jonathan's not the one with the big bankroll, but he can afford people who don't need to _try_ to shoot a target who can't even see where they are."

"And what can your boss afford?" Getting all the answers was almost enough for Wildrider to forget about his injuries, and he couldn't help finding the idea of a huge reward interesting. "How much will he pay for her?"

All the Protectobots stared at him, but Karen only replied, "At least a million in cash, up front. Probably more."

"Wow! Hey, d'you think maybe he wants something she's got two of, like a foot? Then she could give him one and collect all that money!" He figured Geri could use it, especially since she had none but didn't like the idea of robbing a bank for it.

Streetwise looked at him as if he was something to be scraped out of a wheel-well, but Groove spoke up. "I didn't know any of this, but that's no excuse." He glanced into the distance, though Wildrider already knew Geri was nowhere in sight. "But Mr Stover won't be able to take her away from here without us noticing."

"No, he could just kill her right now while you're flapping your mouth," Wildrider said, and transformed. That hurt, but he didn't care. He had limped home from battle with injuries just as bad, spurred on by the knowledge that Motormaster hated it when anyone fell behind. There were only two sure ways to stop a Stunticon from moving – stasis lock and permanent deactivation.

Streetwise gave him a long steady look, but despite the dirt and lubricant staining his face, there was no hostility in his stare for once. "You can't do this alone," he said. "And if you charge off, you'll get yourself killed as well as her. Haven't you realized that that's a fragging minefield over there?"

_Oh, so that's why the horse blew up, _Wildrider thought as he revved his engine_._ "Haven't _you_ realized that she's called for help?" In alt-mode, he couldn't gesture, but he didn't need to. "She's waiting for someone to get here, and it ain't the cops."

Karen didn't bother trying to deny it; instead, she just looked challengingly at the Protectobots. "I know where they'll be. Want me to go in first and see if I can get the girl out alive?"

Wildrider had always decided things fast – thinking too much was just a waste of time. Whoever Karen worked for or whatever she had done, she didn't have the Protectobot scruples (which was good) and she wasn't going to kill Geri (which was better). He made up his mind.

"Come on!" he yelled and drove forward before any of the Protectobots could stop him. He sped past Karen and she threw herself into the back seat through the empty doorway. Broken glass crunched under her gloved hands and she swore in a language he didn't recognize as she sat up.

"Hey, watch out for my DVDs!" Wildrider shouted as he accelerated again, dodging an injured horse because he couldn't let anything slow him down. "All that bare ground's the minefield, right?" _Makes sense – why else would there be a huge stretch of plowed ground all but bisecting the valley? This is a ranch, not a farm. _

"Right," Karen said breathlessly, fumbling for a seatbelt. Blood trickled down the side of her face where one of the splinters had cut her. "Are you going to drive around it?"

"Why bother?" Wildrider said, giggling. Having a challenge like that distracted him from his injuries too, although he could see Groove and Blades following him at speed. The 'copter could simply fly over the minefield, but the two-wheels… of course, the mines were set off by weight, which meant the field was safe for humans but not for horses or Ferraris.

Wildrider glanced at the few outbuildings in the distance, on the other side of the minefield that was coming up fast before him. That was where Stover would have taken Geri, to put a killing ground between his hostage and everyone else. _He's smart, for a squishy. _

_But I'm fast, for a car._

His engine screamed, and Karen's eyes widened as the readout on the digital speedometer blurred. Wind poured over him like a great tide, though rather than cooling him down it felt as though it was fanning the heat of his engine into a raging fire. He dipped into his sound files, selected Naglfar's "Unleash Hell" and pushed the volume as high as possible as he hit his maximum velocity – two hundred and fifty miles an hour.

_Here goes nothing._

Wildrider plunged into the minefield. His tires threw up sprays of dirt that disappeared as the first mine exploded just behind him, sending up a geyser of smoke and charred earth. He winced as fragments of metal struck him, but he was moving so fast that all he took were deep scratches. The second mine detonated an instant after he raced over it, and to his satisfaction the Protectobot 'copter vanished in the black plumes that filled the air.

There was no pattern to the arrangement of the mines – or at least none that he could see – so he wasn't too surprised when the third mine turned the ground to a smoking crater. One of his rear wheels scrabbled on the edge of the pit for a moment, but his frantic speed was enough to pull the tire free. A chunk of twisted metal, red-hot, _spangged_ against his vanity plate.

"Ow!" Losing a hand in battle was one thing, but the plates were off-limits, and for good reason. Wildrider had zero intentions of anyone, human or Autobot, keeping a license plate saying WLDRDR under their berths. He was clear of the minefield by then, though, and when the last raw scream of the song stopped, he slid the volume on his stereo system back down. Grass crunched under his tires, releasing a fresh green scent almost drowned out by the stench of smoke and overheated components.

Internal fans and vents whirred hard, and Wildrider's usually overtaxed coolant system reached its maximum capacity as well. He braked so sharply that Karen jolted forward like a rag doll despite the seatbelt. One hand was clamped over her mouth, but she lowered it.

"Did you…" She cleared her throat. "Did you drive like that when the Lombardi girl was traveling with you?"

"Frag no. That was really boring driving – all I did was go in a straight line. I can do much cooler stuff. Wanna see?"

Humans always threw themselves out of Wildrider's passenger compartment when they heard that, and Karen was no exception, although she did it much faster since there was no door in the way. Wildrider would have giggled if the stock of her shotgun hadn't clipped him on the spot where a door-hinge had been. He snarled, though the sound was lost as Blades came reeling out of the smoke. Karen rolled over in the grass and got to her feet. She brushed splinters like slivers of rubies off her clothes as Groove weaved through the last few feet of the minefield and joined them.

Wildrider looked around. The few buildings that far from the ranchhouse looked as though they were meant for storage and could be easily crushed, even in his condition. One was more than large enough for his alt-mode, though.

"Shall we hide in there and surprise him?" he said as softly as he could.

"Yeah, you do that," Karen said. Groove transformed and pulled open the doors of the structure – a barn, Wildrider realized. "I'll go down and tell him that you've all left. Just be quiet until then."

She shrugged her shotgun into place across her back, then strode several yards away to a smaller building with reddish paint peeling off its walls and disappeared inside.

* * *

"Mr Stover?" It was a woman's voice. "It's safe now, sir. The Autobots drove off that Decepticon."

_No way._ Geri's heart sank but she told herself not to lose hope. _They couldn't have. Nothing could drive Wildrider off if he didn't want to leave. _

"Where are the Autobots?" Stover said.

"They've gone to take the injured to hospital, sir, and they've called for the police to secure this area."

That sounded like something the Protectobots would do, though Geri doubted Stover would want the police there. _Too many questions he'd have to answer, like why he set up a minefield on his land. Or where I disappeared to after Groove left me with him._

Stover took a few rapid steps away, and there was a clicking sound followed by the rapid press of buttons. A phone, Geri knew even before she heard him say, "Zielinski? Get to the plane." The phone clacked as he hung it up.

"What's the story when the cops arrive, sir?" the woman said.

A gun fired, the echoes slamming off the narrow walls of the shelter. Geri jolted, and she heard her father draw his breath in sharply. "Dear God, he shot her."

_Why? To get rid of witnesses. Maybe he's going to shoot us as well_. As if from a distance, Geri heard the woman totter backwards and fall against something that clanged and rolled over the floor – tins of food, perhaps. She listened numbly as the tins came to a halt and the echoes died away. If Stover had reached the point where he murdered his own people, she didn't know what to say to placate him or to save their lives.

When she heard his voice again, she started, although he spoke as calmly as if nothing had happened. "We'll be taking a flight," he said.

"No," her father said. "Your plane only seats three--"

"It's all right, Dad." Geri was trembling and she barely recognized her own voice; it sounded thin and scared, but she couldn't let her father be killed too. "I'll – I'll go with him." _And if he shoots my dad, I'll wait until we're airborne and then I'll make us crash somehow_. She had no idea how – even if she threw herself at the controls and managed to press buttons or pull a lever before Stover stopped her, it might have no effect, but she couldn't let him get away with hurting her father.

_It might not come to that, though._ The one thing she was certain of was that Wildrider wouldn't have left her, so she knew he would make an appearance sometime soon. The important thing was to make sure Stover wasn't able to harm her father when that happened.

So she only hugged her father, hoping it wouldn't be for the last time, and crossed over to where she had last heard the sound of Stover's voice. He caught her shoulder, pulled her out and slammed the door shut, sliding the lock back into place. Geri wondered about the woman who had been shot – she couldn't smell any blood – but Stover pushed her ahead of him as he took her back to the steps. That time, she knew better than to ask any questions as she climbed up and out of the shelter.

The sun felt warm on her skin after being underground for so long – or perhaps because she was still shivering. Outside, it was very quiet. Although she smelled smoke and scorched earth, the battle seemed to be over.

Stover took a firmer grip on her arm and touched the muzzle of his gun to her back, just below one shoulder-blade. "Come on," he said. "The pilot's here."

Geri moved obediently as he directed her, but they hadn't taken more than a few steps away before she heard a sharp crunching sound just beside her. Stover stopped, his hand tightening on her arm.

"What is it?" she said, hoping he wouldn't hurt her again, whatever it was.

"Stepped on something… glass."

She noticed the change in his voice on the last word, but before she could say anything his arm snaked around her throat. Before she could even gasp, though, something nearby shattered with a crash that sounded like planks being turned to matchwood in an instant. Splinters sprayed everywhere, and she heard the familiar rumble of an engine as Wildrider burst out from wherever he had been hiding.

Stover pulled her before him so that the muzzle of his gun dug painfully into her back. "Stop or I'll fire!"

* * *

_Doesn't matter how much money or power humans have – or think they have,_ Wildrider thought as he braked to a halt beside the barn and transformed. _They're still so tiny when you look down at them. And they break pretty slagging easily too._

Unfortunately that applied to Geri as well, and his target was holding her before him, threatening to shoot. Wildrider watched her closely, not so much to check if she was injured but to see if she had a plan, such as doing some kind of fancy martial arts move like throwing the human over her shoulder. She didn't look as though she was going to try anything of the sort, though.

_No biggie, I can handle this. Somehow_. He glanced around for inspiration, but all he saw was another human climbing into the plane in the distance.

"Now you're going to let us leave." Stover took a step back, dragging Geri with him. "Or else she gets it."

Wildrider laughed. "Nah, you're not gonna shoot her. 'Cause if you do, I'm gonna see how many of your bones I can break by driving over 'em. Once I get to a hundred I'll stop." There was a word for that kind of situation – stillmate or something. Dead End would have known it, but all Wildrider wanted to do was break that as well, whatever it was. "But how 'bout a bet?" he said cheerfully. "Winner gets the girl."

"A bet?" Stover said as if he had never heard the words before.

Wildrider was not the fastest Stunticon (that was Drag Strip), or the strongest (that was Motormaster), or the prettiest (that was Dead End), or the smartest (that was Breakdown, when he wasn't paralyzed by either the fear that someone might be watching him or the fear that he was going to be slagged by Motormaster for allowing his paranoia to get the better of him). But he was the best at surprising his enemies, taking them aback by the sheer craziness of whatever he did.

Dead End had once referred to that as "thinking outside the box", though Wildrider wasn't sure he would have called it the same thing. Being surprising came naturally to him, but thinking didn't. He didn't worry about what it was called, though, as long as he could do it. And Stover reacted just as Wildrider had expected him to; his gradual retreat stopped, although he didn't let go of Geri or move the gun away from her.

"What kind of a bet?" he said.

"Hmmm." Wildrider pursed his mouth up as if pondering deeply. "Well, see that dinky little plane of yours? Let it get into the air. If I can bring it down without touching it, you hand her over. How's that?"

Stover's eyes narrowed. "Without touching it? So you'll shoot at it?"

"Won't shoot, won't throw anything at it, won't use my thrusters – they're still offline, anyway." Wildrider held up the stump of his left hand, trying not to wince at the movement. "See, I couldn't do any of that even if I needed to. No sonic attacks, no teleportation, no help from other 'cons. If your plane comes down, you give Geri back and I'll let you go. Stunticon's honor." He tried not to snicker at the last part. "How about it?"

He knew that Stover wasn't likely to hold to that agreement if he won, which was fine, because Wildrider didn't plan on holding to it either. What he really wanted to do was to take out the plane which had outsmarted him.

Stover hesitated. "And if you don't bring my plane down?"

"You both get to leave on it. Seems fair to me."

"All right," Stover said. "I'm a sporting man. Let's see what you can do." He yelled an order to the pilot, and Wildrider watched as the plane's propeller started up, spinning into a blur. It began to accelerate along the landing strip to build up speed for its takeoff.

When he looked back at Stover, he could tell that the human had taken advantage of his moment of distraction to retreat a few paces, though that wouldn't make a difference. There was no cover anywhere near him except a single tiny structure that looked more like a narrow white box than like a house; it certainly wasn't large enough for two humans. Still, he was relatively safe while he had Geri. Wildrider just hoped she could breathe in his grip.

"Don't worry, kiddo," he said as the plane neared the end of the asphalt. "I'm going to bring that bird down without even moving from this spot."

"Wish I could see it--" The words were cut off as Stover tightened his arm around her throat, and Wildrider bit off a growl. The plane took off and he had to stop it. _Now_.

He spun on one heel, screamed "Hi-_yah_!" and brought his elbow crashing down on the roof of the barn. The impact juddered through his struts and relays, but the roof shattered. Rafters dislodged, tumbling over each other like twigs in a stream, but one of them fell at exactly the angle Wildrider wanted – one end on the floor of the barn and the other resting on the edge of the open roof.

"Now!" he yelled, and Groove raced up the makeshift ramp. The motorcycle couldn't fly, but his speed and the forty-foot length of the rafter were enough to send him soaring high. He sailed through the air in a smooth arc that carried him right into the path of the rising plane.

For a moment Wildrider thought the Protectobot would crash into the plane, which would technically make him lose the bet, but Groove's wheels skimmed over the plane's wings by inches. Flipping down, his vaporators fired a thick mist that enveloped the entire front half of the plane. Wildrider didn't know what was in the pale cloud, but the plane's climb halted abruptly.

Groove dropped with an ugly crunch of metal on hard-packed earth, transforming and rolling a short distance before he fetched up in a heap. Trailing wisps of mist that still clung to it, the plane descended fast as well – too fast. It hit the ground in an ungraceful belly flop that tore out its undercarriage, gutting it like a fish. Pieces of its landing gear flew in all directions. Wildrider felt a grin spread across his face, and when he saw Stover's expression it was all he could do not to burst out laughing.

_Bet you didn't think I could take your escape route out that easily, huh? _he thought.

Rotors whipping the air, Blades rose out of the ruined barn and flew over to the crash site, pausing to retrieve the pilot's limp form from the plane before he went to check on Groove. A message that wasn't red for once flashed in Wildrider's diagnostic queue – his thrusters and anti-grav were finally online again. _Now that all the fun's over,_ he thought. Stover seemed frozen by the plane's crash, but at the helicopter's descent he shook his head slightly and turned back to Wildrider.

"Th-that was the Protectobots," he said.

"Yup," Wildrider said. Twenty yards behind Stover, Streetwise was driving carefully through the grass, trying to creep up on the human. Wildrider felt sure it wouldn't work, mostly because Streetwise was just not the sneaky type. Dead End had once called him "a sanctimonious dullard" and Wildrider kept intending and forgetting to look up the meanings of those words.

Still, he raised his voice deliberately to try to cover the sound of the Protectobot's crawling-slow approach, since he couldn't think of any other way to get Geri out of the human's grip. "Said I wouldn't have any other 'cons helping me, but they ain't cons, poor slaggers. They're total tools, but y'know, sometimes even tools come in handy. So… looks like I won. How 'bout you let her go?"

Stover's shoulders slumped visibly. "All right," he said, and his arm relaxed a little, although he didn't release Geri. "But I can't turn her over to a Decepticon – it just wouldn't be right."

"Wow, you actually said that with a straight face." Wildrider sent a hurry-the-frag-up radio message to Streetwise, since it didn't look as though the human would hold to the terms of their bet. "You've got some bearings, talking about what's right after everything you've done to her--"

"Let me finish!" Stover said. "See that red storehouse? Her father's in an underground fallout shelter just beneath it. If you get him out, I'll give her to him."

_Well, that kinda makes sense_, Wildrider thought, _and she was worried about her father. At least I can make sure he's safe._ He took a few strides towards the red building and went to one knee beside it, preparing to smash his forearm through the structure and get it out of the way.

"No!" Geri's gasp made him turn, just as Stover clamped his hand over her mouth. He yelped and pulled it back in the next moment, and Wildrider guessed Geri had bitten him.

"Wildrider, get away from there!" Her eyes were wide and sightless, but the fear in her expression was evident. "It's trapped--"

A gunshot rang out. Geri jolted forward and her face went slack. Wildrider saw the small rip of an exit wound in the front of her blouse, and a wet redness starting to spread around it before she crumpled to the ground. Stover turned and ran towards the narrow white building just as Streetwise accelerated forward.

Wildrider transformed, but that took a few seconds longer than usual because of his injuries and Stover yanked open the door of the white building just as all four of Wildrider's tires thudded down to the ground. The inside was painted white too, which made the plunger-box detonator even easier to see. He grabbed the handle, and Wildrider fired.

His lasers drove through the human's body as if it didn't exist. Stover dropped, half in and half out of the little building, flopping in a jerky disconnected way that Wildrider would have stared at in fascination if all his attention hadn't been on Geri. He sped up to her just as Streetwise reached them.

"He's still alive." Streetwise's head jerked up as he stared at something in the distance. "Who the hell--"

Wildrider glanced away from Geri for the moment he needed to see two dark shapes in the sky, twin helicopters coming in fast. If it had been just one, he might have hoped it was Vortex, but since he had no idea who they were he ignored them as he looked back at Geri. She was face-down on the ground, but he thought she was still breathing. Against the white of her blouse, the growing bloodstains looked even more vivid.

He couldn't transform again – it hurt too much – so he flipped a door open and shouted at Streetwise. "Get her inside! I'll take her to… to a repair bay!"

"In your condition?" The voice was Karen's, and when Wildrider's optical sensors swiveled in her direction, he saw her standing in the doorway of the structure Geri had tried to warn him about. Her blue uniform top was torn open, showing the bulletproof vest beneath, and her shotgun was in her hands. "She can go in one of the choppers."

"No way. She's staying with me." Wildrider's engine rumbled a warning, but before he could turn and fire at the helicopters a man pushed his way past Karen and ran forward. He dropped to his knees beside Geri's body and picked her up.

"We – we need to get to a hospital," he said, looking around as if he didn't really see either Wildrider or the Protectobots, as though he knew he had heard voices and was hoping those belonged to other humans who just might appear and help him.

"I'm right here!" Wildrider snapped. "Get in!"

Streetwise straightened up and put a hand behind his back. "The closest hospital is Memorial, in Colorado Springs, but there's been an accident on the highway. It'll take too long to get her there by road. Blades can fly her--"

Karen lifted the gun, stock to shoulder. "Not after I nearly got killed trying to--"

Streetwise's hand appeared again, holding his photon pistol, and Karen swung her shotgun to aim at him instead. Both weapons discharged simultaneously. Wildrider offlined his oftics just before the blinding flash of light went off, and as Streetwise staggered from the blast he seized his chance.

He slammed his horn, blaring so loudly that Geri's father flinched back. _Good, at least I've got your attention now._

"Get in!" he screamed. The human hesitated a moment longer, then scrambled in with Geri in his arms. Wildrider flung the door shut with a bang and reversed at top speed, ignoring Blades's yells for him to stop. The Protectobot 'copter whirred through the air towards them, so Wildrider fired at him happily, secure in the knowledge that Blades wouldn't shoot back for fear of hurting the humans. Not that that prevented Blades from evading the shots, hailing him on the radio and describing just how they would all kill him, but Wildrider was already off by then.

His thrusters carried him over the minefield, and once he was on the valley floor again, he turned his stereo system on as he raced to the slope. Blind Guardian's "And Then There Was Silence" began to play. "Put your seatbelt on before you fall out!" he shouted to be heard over the music.

The human did that, looking around at Wildrider's missing door and missing rear windshield with a dawning dread in his face, as if he had been running away from Frenzy and had bumped straight into Megatron. "Y-you're the Decepticon Geri mentioned?"

"Yup, that's me!" Wildrider was pleased; judging from her father's expression, Geri had obviously made him sound awe-inspiring. He watched her through his internal sensors, wondering if she would wake up soon. Her father seemed too scared to be good company, so it was either Geri or the 'bots.

Who were still trying to reach him on the radio – they were following him, but they couldn't match his breakneck speed and they didn't have thrusters. He finally opened his side of the link as he weaved in and out of the trees, heading towards a road in the distance. "Wildrider, _stop!_" Streetwise said at once. "There's a traffic jam--"

"Lucky you, you get to see how I deal with those. Watch and learn, grasshopper!"

"You're _not_ going to shoot anyone else!" Streetwise yelled.

"I'm _not_ going to take orders from _you_, is what I'm not going to do!" Wildrider screamed back. Geri gasped and stirred, her eyes opening; they looked very dark in the pallor of her face, but Wildrider was so relieved to see her back online that he hardly noticed.

Her father brushed glass splinters off the seat and shifted so that she was lying a little more comfortably – and as far away from the open doorway as possible. "It's all right, baby," he said. "We'll be at the hospital soon."

"In about three minutes, as the Stunticon drives," Wildrider agreed. He reached a road and sped along it, dodging any vehicles in the way and building up speed for the highway. "You okay, kiddo? I lost some of my DVDs, but most of those horses went to the glue factory and all my tires are still on the road. And the 'bots are after us, but I think it's finally gotten through their thick helms that we're friends. Can you imagine the look on Prime's face when he finds out? Oh yeah, forgot he doesn't have a face. Hey, if you wanna make a million dollars, I know how you can do it without robbing a bank! That Stover guy – not the one we met, the other one – is gonna pay at least that much if you give him a spare part. What d'you think? Slag it, _answer me when I'm talking to you!_"

Geri turned her head so she was facing the dashboard, though when she spoke her voice was so quiet that Wildrider had to switch the music off to hear her. "Frag off," she whispered.

Wildrider burst out laughing. _That's better!_ At least he could be sure she was still alive, though her father still had that poleaxed look. _Wow, if he's scared now he'll probably drop into stasis lock when I start the _good_ stuff. Oh well, the door's gone, so he can always jump out if he likes. _

He looked back see what had happened to the two choppers Karen had sent for, but the only flier still in the sky was Blades, trailing smoke but managing to more or less keep pace with him. Streetwise was a red-and-blue flash almost on the horizon; the highway was far closer, and chock-a-block with traffic. Racing along the road that led to the access lane which led to an overpass, Wildrider checked his maps in an instant, decided it would take far too long to navigate the overpass in the usual way, and hit his thrusters instead.

He sailed over the packed cars (half of which started to panic as they realized they were in a Decepticon's way), and came down on the other side of the overpass, straight on top of a Mack truck. Despite his injuries, it felt wonderful to have his thrusters back in order, their boost compensating so that the bounce of landing didn't jar him any more than was necessary. He sped along the top of the truck, leaped off and landed on a twenty-foot U-Haul, racing along the length of that before his weight could sink his tires into the metal of the roof.

"Cool, huh?" he said to Geri's father. Truck-hopping was always fun; not only was it fast, it provided him with a great view. And in the traffic jam, the trucks could hardly move, so it was just like following a trail of stepping-stones. "Told you I'd get her to the hospital on time!"

"I just hope she'll get there alive." _Aw, she's a tough cookie_, Wildrider thought. _If a Stunticon couldn't faze her, nothing will_. "If – if we were in an ambulance, they'd get out of the way--"

"Hey, that's not a bad idea!" Wildrider leaped on to a flatbed truck that looked so much like Long Haul that he almost expected to hear it complain that it couldn't be expected to carry a Ferrari anywhere. It was filled with logs, and they shifted under his tires, one of them rolling off as he drove up the length of the truck and soared off again. "Woo-WOO!" he howled at the top of his vocalizer. "Woo-WOO!"

"What the frag are you _doing_?" Blades shouted.

"I'm being an ambulance! Why'nt you make like an Insecticon and buzz off?"

He didn't know what made the helicopter break off and touch down away from the roads – perhaps it was the smoke still trailing from the Protectobot's chassis, or perhaps there was some other reason – but the sky was suddenly clear apart from the fiery light in the west. _Wow, the sun's nearly setting_, Wildrider thought as he leaped from a tanker to a bus to a big rig (the driver of the last one had seen him coming and scrambled out, leaving the engine still running as he fled for cover). _Tomorrow I get to go back home!_

He hoped Geri would be repaired by then. Maybe he could give her one last drive.

The police had seen him, although he thought Streetwise had radioed ahead to tell them not to stop him; instead, they seemed to be clearing a way for the 'bot. Wildrider saw the flash of lights in the distance as Streetwise struggled to keep pace with him, but that didn't matter when he spotted the sign saying "Memorial Hospital".

He didn't like that name – wasn't a memorial put up when someone died, and wasn't a hospital supposed to be a place where humans went to get better? – but there was no time to think about it now. He sailed off the rig, felt asphalt under his tires and tore along the road that led up to the hospital. A fresh leak immediately began as yet another system gave way under the continued strain, and he glanced at his diagnostic queue. _Brake fluid or coolant? Oh, both._

"Which way do I go?" he yelled at an ambulance that drove straight into a flowerbed as it tried to get out of his way.

"Emergency's to the right!" Geri's father said.

"Gotcha!" Wildrider skidded as he turned - his brakes were suddenly not all that reliable - but he recovered and raced on into a parking lot. The _Emergency_ sign was brightly lit, and humans ran in all directions as they saw him come to a screeching halt that left trails of burned rubber on the ground. "Hey Geri, we're here!"

There was no answer.

* * *

_Author's note : A shotgun-wielding assassin called Karen appeared for a few minutes in Quentin Tarantino's _Kill Bill: Volume 2_. I liked her, although she didn't have much screen time, and so I borrowed her for this fic._

**VampireArgonian92** : I figure that on a North American ranch, there's either going to be cattle or horses. Horses seemed more challenging, though I can see Wildrider playing bullfighter with the cattle (and maybe trying to brand them with a W once he caught them).

**Taipan Kiryu** : Thanks for your review! Blowing things up real good in the end is a trademark of mine, and there's no one better than Wildrider to ensure such an explosive finale. And he provides plenty of humor and warmth to balance out the tension; that's something I wouldn't get as easily if I was writing one of the other Stunticons. Wildrider is just entertaining, period, and he's doing a great job of keeping people interested in his story.

And you're right, he does have everything against him. Myself included, poor guy. I like Wildrider a lot, but I never intended for him to get away scot-free with too much of his mayhem, so he'll continue to pay a price for what he's done and the decisions he's made.

**Fire From Above**: Yes, Wildrider's finally taken all the physical slagging he can stand and then some. So it's time to get the emotional thumbscrews out now. What, you thought it was over for him? ;)

He did a pretty good job against everything I could throw at him, though. That insanity actually works for him; he'll come up with some tactic so crazy that it was never taken into consideration by his enemies.

**demonicSuperCow**: Thanks for your review! I find the concept of a combiner team fascinating – it's what got me interested in Transformers at a point when I'd never even watched any of the series. And the Stunticons' gestalt bond is well-nigh unbreakable. As you said, they can be lovable despite all their various dysfunctions and the truly screwed-up nature of their team.

Of all the Stunticons, I find Breakdown the most difficult to get a hold of when it comes to character. He's an odd mixture of intelligence and instability, violence and vulnerability, loopiness and loyalty (forgive the alliteration). I'm happy with the part he's played in my fics to date, but I don't think I've hit on the right star vehicle for him yet. Glad to hear you liked the others, though! Dead End and Motormaster should get their own turn in the spotlight next, and Drag Strip will play a major supporting role in that story.

Any story where three personalities like theirs collide with each other at top speed should be… interesting… to write.

**dixiegurl13**: When I first started writing this fic, I had no idea how sympathetic a character Wildrider would turn out to be, or how much my readers would like him. With all his faults and dangerous traits, too. I'm sure that he's very happy to be so popular. :)

On the other hand, although he's been badly misunderstood, that's partly his own fault. He's got to learn that when you routinely cause chaos and destruction, no one will be in a hurry to give you the benefit of the doubt when you're blamed for something you _didn't_ do. In fact, that's inspired me to make an addition to the last scene of the story. Thanks muchly. Glad you like the action scenes too!


	18. In which Optimus Prime brings news

**Chapter 18: In which Optimus Prime brings news**

"Get out here!" Wildrider yelled at the hospital staff who were peeking from within the swinging doors of the building or cringing behind nearby vehicles. "I've got an injured kid in the front seat!"

"It's all right!" Streetwise raced into the parking lot in a cloud of dust. "He's not going to hurt you! Just help her!"

_Before I _do _hurt you,_ Wildrider thought, but the humans crept out of cover, moving a little faster as Streetwise drove close enough for them to see the Autobot symbol on his hood. Wildrider popped a door open, growling that it was about time as two of them hurried out with a stretcher. They lifted Geri on to it, but she didn't move or make a sound as they pushed the stretcher back to the emergency entrance, her father beside it. The doors swung shut behind them.

Wildrider was left in the parking lot with his door still open, and he started to close it automatically. Just as reflexively, though, he glanced at his passenger compartment with his internal sensors to make sure nothing was in the way when he shut the door, and he froze.

Dark stains covered the seat and the remaining DVDs on the floor were splattered with drying fluid. _Blood_, Wildrider thought. Even though it was clotting into a color much deeper than red, he recognized the faint coppery smell of it, and that unsettled him. He was used to seeing human blood spilled, but it was different when the blood belonged to someone he knew. And there seemed to be a lot of it.

He closed the door with a soft click and reversed slowly. His tire pressure had hit the red zone, though hopefully he didn't need to drive anywhere soon, so he could cool off and see if his self-repair system was up to stopping the new leaks.

There hadn't been any empty parking spaces when he had first arrived, but now there was suddenly plenty of room. The 'con symbol could always do that, Wildrider decided as he backed into the parking spots, deliberately sprawling across two of them just to see if the Protectobot would whine about that as well. Streetwise said nothing, though; he kept a careful three cars' widths between himself and Wildrider, and turned his lights off.

_What's he waiting for?_ Wildrider thought, but he wasn't going to be the first one to break the silence. Besides, he supposed Streetwise was under orders to keep an eye on him while he was so close to the human repair bay. And he had nowhere else to go, so he stayed there.

His own repair system had managed to seal off his leaks, but he was low on all fluids now._ I lived through it all, though_. _Started out just trying to find something to keep me occupied during a six-day vacation and ended up on an interstate chase. Beat the 'bots, beat the demolition machines – hey, I can tell the 'Structies about that, entertain them while they fix me and they won't gripe so much! – beat a human version of Starscream and got Geri to the repair bay on time. Awesome._

The sun had been low over the horizon by the time he had driven into the parking lot, and to his surprise Wildrider saw that it had now gone completely. A sliver of moon was very pale against the sky. He hadn't really noticed because the hospital was well-lighted, most of its windows glowing, and the work never seemed to stop inside. The emergency doors swung open again and again to admit more humans, and once an ambulance raced up with its lights flashing. Compared to that, Streetwise was very quiet; he stayed in his parking space as if recharging.

_Why does it take so long to make repairs?_ Wildrider thought. He turned his radio on, though that didn't make much of a difference; he had never felt so tired, and the wounds he had taken throbbed unceasingly, wearing him down even further. _I hope I'll be able to make it all the way home,_ he thought.

The sky turned ink-dark by then, and the stars looked like a faint dust of glitter scattered across it. _What if they've forgotten all about me? No. Streetwise is still waiting here, which means they haven't. Besides, once Geri comes out of stasis she'll come out and let me know she's all right_.

He wished he could transform and stretch out on his own berth with a cube. Five days since he had had any energon, and while the Stunticons – built from terrestrial vehicles – could drive on fossil fuels alone, their cybernetic systems needed energon as well. Suddenly he felt homesick too. He longed to be back in his own quarters or in the common room in front of the large-screen TV, pushing and shoving for the good side of the couch.

He checked his internal chronometer, which said it was past midnight. _At any moment I'm going to start firing at the stupid place so they hurry the frag up,_ he thought, but he was distracted from that when his radio pinged.

"Wildrider!" That made him start a little; it had been some time since he had heard Motormaster's voice, though the familiarity of it almost made up for the fury. Almost. "Get back to the base!"

"Sure, boss," Wildrider said, and Motormaster cut the comm link without another word. After a moment Wildrider turned the radio completely off from his end as well. _I said I'd get back to the base, but I didn't say when. _He could always explain the delay by saying he had run into an Autobot posse; his injuries would back up that excuse._ And he sounds madder than usual. _He wondered why Motormaster was angry, then decided that that was like wondering why water was wet.

Time dragged on, and despite his exhaustion Wildrider felt a familiar twitchiness creep over him; if he had been in robot mode he would have been fidgeting, but in alt-mode even that outlet wasn't available. _Two a.m. already_, he thought, shifting on his tires. He wanted to do something, anything – he just wasn't sure what.

"Prime is on his way here," Streetwise said suddenly.

"Huh?" Wildrider was taken aback. "Prime? Why?"

"To speak to you. He says he's heard from the hospital."

"Oh," Wildrider said, suddenly understanding. The humans were too afraid of him to come out and tell him themselves that Geri was all right, and they'd probably stopped her from doing the same thing. He giggled. _And it's not just any Autobot they called to be their messenger, it's Prime himself. I'm _that_ scary!_

"I don't think this is funny," Streetwise said flatly.

"Not my fault you haven't got a sense of humor," Wildrider said, cheerful again. He didn't mind waiting a little longer for Prime – not only was that particular Autobot as bulky as Motormaster, he would probably drive with snail-like speed on the road. He fiddled with his radio a little longer and slipped into a drowsy half-online state, too weary to maintain full awareness any longer.

It was a quarter to four when the red and blue cab turned into the parking lot. Streetwise transformed and Wildrider was suddenly alert; being that close to a mech who had driven away from a head-on collision with Motormaster could do that to any Stunticon, even if the Autobot leader only claimed he was there to chat. As Prime drove closer, he thought of transforming too, then decided against it. A quick getaway would be quicker if he was in alt-mode, though in his condition he wasn't sure how far he would get before the Autobots caught up.

A police car slipped into the parking lot as well. _Prowl,_ Wildrider thought. _Wow, how many of them does it take to talk to one 'con? _He watched the Autobots and almost failed to notice the humans in the shadows of the repair bay, though the flash of a camera going off caught his optics at once.

Optimus Prime transformed. "They don't need to see this," he said, but Prowl was already heading in the humans' direction. Whatever he said to them was too quiet for Wildrider to hear, but they retreated into the building. _Doesn't want them to get caught in the crossfire_, Wildrider thought.

Prime turned back. "Wildrider," he said, his voice neutral.

_No good, I have to transform,_ Wildrider thought. He couldn't keep staring up at Prime – or anyone – like that, even if they were there to fight him. So he gunned his engine and reversed a few yards over a section of lawn and flowerbed before he transformed. At least that gave him a slight advantage if Prime decided to charge him.

The Autobot leader's optics glowed blue in the darkness, but his posture was open and unaggressive. "We don't mean you any harm," he said. "We know that most of what you did was with the aim of protecting that girl--"

"Shove it," Wildrider said without heat; any version of the word "protect" always made him think of Autobots, and he wasn't one. _Thank Primus_. "I don't need any apologies from you."

"Apologies?" Streetwise said, optics flaring.

Wildrider grinned, and continued speaking to Prime. "I just want to be sure that Geri's okay. That's why you came here, right?"

"Not quite," Prime said after a moment. "The hospital contacted me about three hours ago with the news. They did everything they could for Miss Lombardi, but it was too late. I'm sorry, Wildrider, but she's dead."

_Dead?_

Wildrider didn't feel shocked or even upset, because he couldn't feel anything except disbelief. He'd never lost any of his teammates, even after their worst battles, so how could Geri be dead?

"No way," he said. Prime didn't reply, only looked steadily at him. "She can't be dead. I got her here as fast as I could."

"I'm sure you did everything possible--" Prime began.

"And then some." Streetwise's optics burned.

At any other time Wildrider might have demanded what the Protectobot meant by that, but he was still trying to think about what Prime had just told him. The word _dead_ kept echoing inside his head. _There's no way she can be dead. She's going to be twelve next month. _

_She was._

That time, the sense of detachment didn't feel like floating up into the sky; instead, the world lurched beneath his feet and then fell away into emptiness. Wildrider looked around blankly, but nothing seemed real. The building before him and even the Autobots were as flat as a painting, a meaningless smear of shapes and night-muted colors. He had failed, he had lost what he had fought so hard for, and it was all over with nothing but the blood dried on his seats to show for it.

He turned in the direction of the hospital, but some last shred of sanity told him the Autobots wouldn't just stand by as he tore the place apart. A voice spoke, raw and angry, and he only realized it was his own when he heard the thick Texan accent.

"What the frag kind of useless repair bays do humans have, if they couldn't help her?" he snarled.

"Don't blame them!" Streetwise said. "This is your fault!"

Wildrider's temper flared. The Autobots were still blaming him for everything that had happened to Geri, and even though he was relieved that he could still feel – that was better than the blank nothingness – he wanted to kill Streetwise. "My fault?" he managed to say. Any reply more substantial was beyond him.

"Yes, yours! Couldn't you have left her someplace safe instead of dragging her into that kind of danger?"

"She wanted to stay with me!" Wildrider fought an urge to unsubspace his gun and rip the Protectobot apart. He knew he would be deactivated almost as fast after that.

Streetwise's mouth twisted. "Did she force you to play the fragging Lone Ranger instead of just leaving her with the human authorities? How dare you try to shove the responsibility for this onto a child, and one who's dead because of you?"

"Streetwise, that's enough." Prowl's voice was calm and controlled as always, though his optics were dimmed. "It's too late to help her, anyway."

"Her, yes, but maybe he'll think twice before he does this to any other humans," Streetwise said bitterly. "But I'm not holding my breath – he couldn't care less about--"

"Streetwise!" Prime said, all his authority concentrated in the one word.

Wildrider barely heard them as the last of his attention turned inward. The fury boiling through his circuits completed the work of tearing him away from reality, detaching him completely from whatever was happening around him, the reminders of his defeat and loss. He couldn't even see the Autobots any longer – they were just slabs of metal in his way – and the sounds they made faded to a hum in the background. The voices in his head were far louder.

_Herd 'em together and drive over 'em if they run_, Motormaster commanded, as he had done just before one of the Stunticons' earliest battles. _The 'bots'll do anything to save their little pets, and while they're distracted we'll slag 'em._

_They don't put up much of a fight, do they? _Drag Strip laughed. _Hey, let's keep count of how many of them we can squish! Bet I win._

_Why bother? It won't make any difference in the end, will it? _said the distant echo of Dead End's voice.

_I'll stay with you._ That was Geri, except she sounded even further away. _I don't want you to be hurt, not after you saved my life_. Wildrider heard something wrench apart, fragments spinning down into the depths.

_Protecting those helpless creatures and allying himself with them will be Prime's downfall,_ Megatron said. _They will corrupt the Autobots even further and they will always be a vulnerability through which we can strike at our enemies. _

Wildrider latched on to the words, to the confidence in them; it felt like the only solid thing left in the world. _We honor the strong rather than indulging the weak,_ Megatron continued. _And we will establish the only proper order of life on Earth, a future where the Autobots are wiped out and the humans are under our heel._

"Oh, you don't need to worry, Streetwise," Wildrider said, and laughed. That came out like a choking exhalation, as if made by a creature that had never felt amusement before but was trying to imitate the sound. "I'll never bother with any of those stupid weaklings again – unless they get in my way. Then they'll be dead too, and good fragging riddance."

"We can't allow you to harm any of them," Prowl said, his voice tense and clipped.

Wildrider's scattershot gun was in his hand in the next instant – except he forgot about the damage to his right hand. The gun slipped and fell. He grabbed at it, but he was already too late; all three Autobots had their weapons pointed at him.

"Leave," Prime said simply. Wildrider stared at him. "Go back to your base. There's been enough death for now."

Wildrider hadn't thought he could hate the Autobot leader any more than he already did, but at that moment he wanted to kill Prime as well, for denying him the easiest distraction from how he felt. Fighting them would have worked, but they would scrap him before he could even aim at them.

_Doesn't matter. There are lots more targets along the way home, enough and more buildings and cars and humans. Smash enough of those and I'll be okay. I'll be fine._

_I'll be home._

He subspaced the gun, transformed and slammed his accelerator, driving out of the parking lot and into the night.

* * *

_Author's note : Two chapters more._

**Tapian Kiryu** : Wildrider would have to be different about everything, even what he thinks of in the moments before he dies. He's not as self-aggrandizing as Drag Strip or as wrapped up in his own neuroses as Dead End, so I figured that what flashed before his eyes wouldn't be his own life. And of course, he keeps on going as soon as he can. I'm glad you liked the action scenes – it was fun seeing him fight back even without a forcefield, without thrusters, without a hand…

Wildrider's unique skills are what makes writing the Stunticons so enjoyable – each of them will deal with the same problem in a different way under the same circumstances. You're right, he's very instinctive. He does pretty much the first thing that comes into his head, but since he's insane rather than stupid, whatever he does is something his enemies just can't anticipate. I think that's why the only human who really got the better of Wildrider was insane too.

And now you've inspired me to write a scene set during the events of "Masquerade" for the 28 meme. :)

**TheSpittingAlpaca : **No, he's in for a thrashing from Motormaster, who uses a rather unique way of threatening him too. Poor Wildrider. Glad you liked the story so far, even if you didn't get what you were hoping for in this chapter.

**Fire From Above : **I've been stuck in enough traffic jams to wish I could truck-hop. Some of the things the Stunticons do in my fics are complete wish-fulfilment fantasies. :) The emotional thumbscrews are not, though.

**GrimlockX4, Dragon260 : **Thanks for the reviews, and hope you still want to keep reading.

**meteor prime** : Oh, that was a good pun! The Protectobots try their best to do what's right, but they're too used to fighting 'cons and trusting humans, and in this case those were not the best courses of action. Just as Wildrider's usual behavior is to blame as well; if he didn't always act like a maniac, perhaps they might have been more willing to listen to him.


	19. In which Streetwise learns the truth

**Chapter 19: In which Streetwise learns the truth**

"Prowl, follow him and make sure he's going back to the Decepticon base. Don't confront him unless any humans are in danger."

"Not even if he defaces more property with slurs purportedly signed by an Autobot?"

"…I think that's a judgment call."

"Good. I'll keep my distance until then. Prowl out."

"'Signed by an Autobot'? Which Autobot?"

"I'll tell you later, Streetwise. For now, I want to speak to you alone on another matter."

"Yes, Prime?"

"What I just said to Wildrider wasn't true."

"What?"

"The hospital informed me that the surgery was a success. The girl pulled through and is expected to make a complete recovery."

"I – I don't get it. Why did you…"

"Because shortly after I heard the good news, I spoke to Mr Lombardi. He was still worried about his daughter's safety – not so much from Stover as from the Stunticons."

"I don't think Wildrider would've hurt her."

"Not deliberately, no, but driving as though your passengers are crash test dummies – or involving them in felonies – isn't going to help anyone either. Mr Lombardi felt his daughter had been through enough without having to deal with a Decepticon as well. Especially if that Decepticon has a superior officer like Motormaster. What would have happened if _he_ had caught the two of them?"

"Yeah. I see."

"So Mr. Lombardi asked me if I could explain this to Wildrider and convince him that his leaving her alone is best for everyone concerned. I didn't think explanations and reasoning were likely to work, so I tried this. I'm sorry for not telling you about it beforehand, but I didn't want to put you in a position where you had to deliberately lie to anyone, even a Decepticon."

"…I'd do it to defend a human."

"I know. You can make the other Protectobots aware of this, but don't let it go any further."

"Yes, Prime. Is there anything else we have to do here?"

"No. Let's roll out."

* * *

**Fire From Above** : You were right about the 'bots, and they didn't have much choice in the matter – they had to either back up a human's wishes or be truthful with a 'con. Not surprising the human won out.

**Grey Grapevines, Dragon260** : That was my intention from the start, to take an insane amoral terrorist and make my readers feel really, really sorry for him. :)

**Taipan Kiryu** : I don't know if I've ever made a reader cry before, but this is the first time I've been told that a story of mine had such an effect… just the effect I was hoping to achieve. Thanks very much.

Yes, Wildrider's naivete does lend pathos to the scene. In many ways, he's a child too, very simple and direct in what he thinks and feels; this story would not have worked with any other Stunticon in his place. And he's the one I associate with sheer _joie de vivre_, so it's all the more difficult to see his heart (or what passes for it in G1) being broken.

I wanted the ending to put the Autobots into an unpleasant situation too. Simply hurting a 'con might not have been too morally repugnant, but they inadvertently contributed to his sliding back into a vicious "all humans are prey" mentality. I think the Protectobots feel pretty helpless too; they were caught between a rock and a hard place there.

Keep reading, though – as they say, the best is yet to come.

**TheSpittingAlpaca** : Realism is very important to me, so I'm aiming for an ending that's bittersweet (it's been pretty bitter so far) but hopeful. Glad you like how the story's going so far.

**Yuki Hikari** : Thanks for your review! Your profile mentioned you like 'cons and the "unfortunate OCs" who have to deal with them, so hopefully this fic delivered. :)

**dixiegurl13** : I'm glad that even though readers were saddened by that part of the story, no one was upset at me. Some readers really don't want to encounter character death and would prefer to be warned about it, but I wanted that to be as much of a surprise as possible (and I couldn't really warn for character death when it turns out not to be true).

Wildrider's regression to what he finds most familiar – the 'con ideology – is disappointing but hopefully understandable; he doesn't have much else to hold on to at this point. Streetwise does the same thing, falling back to the safety of his status quo, which happens to be the "human good, 'con bad" position. And so the war goes on.

**demonicSuperCow** : Oh, don't worry. There are at least a couple of unpleasant experiences in store for Motormaster in future fics of mine. I hope you'll like 'em. ;) Thanks for your review!


	20. In which Wildrider picks up the pieces

**Chapter 20: In which Wildrider picks up the pieces**

In the darkness the laser looked like a pale spear, thin and deadly. It struck weatherworn granite and seared through it in seconds, decapitating the stone human figurine. Wildrider flicked the gun off and watched as the head lolled to one side and then thumped into grass gone dry in the summer heat.

He thought of burning insults or funny comments into the headless body, but somehow he couldn't work up any interest in that. So he reversed a little and pivoted on his tires at the same time, bringing his weapons to bear on a metal urn filled with flowers. That time he deliberately dialed down the power to his lasers so that they wouldn't cut right through the metal. Instead, it turned red-hot, then glowed white.

Finally it did a candle impression, puddling over the bottom of the headstone and sending trickles of molten metal snaking between the decorative pebbles that covered the grave. Wildrider turned on his radio without noticing what the music was and wondered what else he could destroy.

It was not the first cemetery he had ruined. Some small sane corner of his mind told him that he had only escaped notice so far because no one expected Decepticons to tear up human burial grounds, so such acts were usually put down to human hooligans. He found himself caring less and less about the consequences of what would happen when he was found out, though, which was why he had gone from simply smashing tombstones to using the far more distinctive lasers.

He thought back to when that particular fixation had begun. After he had driven away from the hospital parking lot, he had taken a highway that led to the coast. At an hour before sunrise, the highway was still mostly deserted, so it had been a few miles before Wildrider sped over an overpass and caught up with another vehicle. He attacked without even noticing its make and model.

That was when three Autobots converged on him.

Wildrider had been too far gone to even realize that he was being followed, but he knew it when Prowl caught up with him and another Autobot popped up from beneath the overpass, while a third descended from the sky. In the dark and with most of his mental faculties offline, he hadn't even been able to recognize them, not that he would have cared if he did.

Thermal blasts and acid pellets tore away his armor, burst two of his tires and sent him reeling against the side of the overpass. He thought that might have scraped off what remained of his paint, though by then he wasn't in any state to care, much less move on his own. Smoke plumed from beneath his hood. The Autobots closed in.

That was when the other Stunticons arrived.

Wildrider knew he should have expected them to track him down as soon as they realized he had cut off radio transmissions, but all his thinking seemed to be happening well after the action. At first he didn't recognize his teammates either. He saw a yellow blur, a red shadow and a white flash accompanied by a grating dissonant snarl, the sound of an engine that was ripping itself apart – or shorting out other mechanical devices in the vicinity. But even that died under the thunder as a dark shape gained the overpass and loomed over him.

That was when the pain _really_ started.

Wildrider didn't recall much of what had happened after that. He had a vague feeling that Motormaster had driven off the Autobots and then ordered him to transform, though once he obeyed, he was knocked down by a roundhouse punch that really didn't do anything for his already scrambled memory. It was only later that he realized Motormaster had been making sure he wasn't carrying any passengers.

He guessed either Swindle or Soundwave had reported his illicit association with a human. Not that it mattered at that point. After a little more pounding he admitted whatever he could manage to say while choking on the backflow of gasoline from a damaged internal fuel tank.

The last thing Wildrider remembered was Motormaster bracing a knee on his chestplate and saying that if he ever tried that kind of Autobot slag again, if he ever so much as spoke to another human unless it was to mock or threaten them, "I'll break those pointy things off and shove 'em into your optics. Like this."

Fingers closed around a head-spike and _twisted_. The action sent a jab of white heat through Wildrider's helm. It was hardly anything compared to the unbearable, crushing pressure of Motormaster's weight driving into his chest, but it pushed him over the edge into stasis lock.

When he woke up in the repair bay, the Constructicons were already busy at work on him, and they gave him about as much conversation as they would have given a piece of malfunctioning equipment. Wildrider couldn't help feeling relieved. The last thing he needed was for anyone to ask him why he'd been carrying a human around; the Stunticons' status among the Decepticons was low enough without one of their number being called a squishy-lover into the bargain.

The relief lasted for all of a minute, though, because then he remembered what Motormaster had been doing to his head-spikes. _He couldn't have poked 'em into my optics, 'cause I can still see, but did he twist 'em off?_ Wildrider had no idea what use the spikes were, but he liked them a lot. Even though the Constructicons hated it when patients fidgeted, he had to find out if his spikes were still there.

One of his arms didn't respond at all, perhaps because Hook was doing something to the servos in his finger joints, so he brought the other one up to his face. That was when he realized the hand on that arm hadn't been replaced yet.

"Hold still or I will weld you to the berth," Hook said without looking up.

"Are my spikes still there?" Wildrider said as nicely as he could.

Scrapper's optical band flashed a blink and he shook his head. "Why do they always come in here with CPU damage?" he said to the other Constructicons.

"Those are spikes?" Bonecrusher said. "I thought they were handles anyone could use to get a good grip before twisting your head off."

Mixmaster laughed. "No, no, they're more useful than that. See, you can hang tools on them." Wildrider felt a slight weight dangle from the right side of his head. "Arc welder." Something else was hooked over the left spike. "Laser scalpel. Now hold very very still. Hook won't like it if you drop his tools, no, he won't."

Wildrider supposed he was lucky not to have teammates that crazy, though he had something worse. After he was repaired, but before he could even reach his room, he'd received a radio comm ordering him to Motormaster's quarters. "Seems you were lonely in our absence, Wildrider. Well, you'll get all the attention you want now."

Wildrider's only consolation was that Motormaster wasn't likely to damage him, at least not too badly – the Constructicons didn't like it when their repairs were undone a few minutes after being completed. On the other hand, when Motormaster was in a real fury, the Constructicons would have had to combine to have any effect on him. But what followed was more degrading than painful, and Wildrider could more or less cope with that. Once or twice he'd thought that that was an advantage of being insane; he wasn't as much in touch with reality as everyone else, so whatever happened in reality didn't affect him as much.

That was the theory, anyway. It didn't always seem to work out in practice.

After that life returned to normal. Breakdown and Dead End were indifferent to his experience, though he thought Breakdown might have been more interested if Motormaster hadn't looked ready to blow a fuel line at the mere mention of humans (apparently they had gotten his statue all wrong). Drag Strip said nothing too, but Wildrider could tell he was pleased. Drag Strip had never liked sharing anything he considered his, including his friends, and especially not with a human.

About a month later, Wildrider left the undersea base on what was officially called "extra patrol duty" and was actually Soundwave letting him turn his wheels before any more doors – or mechs – needed to be repaired. He made a desultory raid on a Wal-Mart for some computer games, fueled up and then wandered over the highways until he reached the town where he had first met Geri.

He didn't think of her while he was in the ship; there was plenty to keep him busy and distracted there. Being outside was different, though. He saw humans everywhere, but only Geri had ever stayed with him willingly, had thought he was cool and had tried to warn him about a trap. He missed her but had no idea what to do about that, so he kept driving until he found himself in the cemetery.

It was only then that he realized how stupidly he was behaving. What the frag could he get from a bunch of long-dead humans and carved stone markers, anyway? Nothing was happening, despite the blare of music from his speakers. _For all I know, Geri's not even in one place – they must've turned her into spare parts as soon as she was offline. And even if she was buried in one piece and I knew where that was, she's not likely to talk to me now._

Dead End occasionally drove around graveyards searching for ghosts, but Wildrider was pretty sure that he had never actually found one. Drag Strip teased him about it and even Breakdown had once suggested that they get a human to dress up as a ghost and put an end to the futile pursuit. Wildrider knew he was making far more noise than Dead End ever would, but even that didn't seem enough to rouse whatever ghosts there might be. The place was deserted and featureless except for the rows of little stones.

_And it's going to be even more boring after I leave_. Wildrider finally gave way to frustration. _Fine. If no one's going to talk to me I'll find some other way to amuse myself._

The first cemetery was left in ruins. A hundred miles away and two weeks afterwards, a second graveyard burned when Wildrider drove in circles through it leaking fuel and then set that alight. He led four police cars into the third one in a high-speed chase, and now his lasers seared the arms off a stone cross as he tried to think of something even more spectacular to do. _If I could just get an Autobot or three to--_

A single headlight flicked on at the other end of the graveyard, bright and steady.

Wildrider's guns snapped off and his radar went on simultaneously. _Speak of the dimbulbs._ An Autobot, and there was only one with a solo headlight – though that one was part of a gestalt team too. He primed his weapons, wondering whether to try for sheer speed and overwhelming force or lure the Protectobot into a trap somehow.

Groove was at least thirty or forty yards away, though, and on slightly higher ground. That would give him an advantage in a chase, especially if the rest of the Protectobots were out in force as well. Maybe they were so full of it that they thought dead humans needed their help as well.

His radio pinged, a transmission on a common channel. Wildrider hesitated, then opened the link; he wasn't bothered by anything a Protectobot might tell him.

"I thought it might be you doing this to the human burial grounds," Groove said.

"And I guess now you're sure of it?" Wildrider snickered. "Wanna join in?"

"No. I'm here to ask you to stop."

"Why should I?" Wildrider would have preferred to chase or engage something that fought back, but since his targets were scarce at three a.m. in the morning, he took what he could get. And the longer he was in a graveyard, the more he hated it, which was another reason he had taken to trashing the places. The decorations in them were stupid – cut flowers were just going to die as well – but the quiet stillness was the worst. He thought maybe that was why he couldn't stand silence; that was the sound of death and whatever came after it.

"Because it's wrong."

"_Is_ it? Oh slag, I'll stop right now! I wouldn't want to do anything _wrong_ – how would I ever recharge at night?"

The headlight flickered rapidly, firefly-like, in what Wildrider guessed was an Autobot sign of irritation. At least, he hoped it was. He rather liked the idea of provoking a pacifist into attacking him. "I should have known that wouldn't make any difference," Groove said. "Alrighty then. How'd you like it if you were laid to rest in the 'con crypt and someone defaced your memorial marker?"

"Well, if I'm dead I wouldn't know it, would I?" Wildrider pointed out. "And if I didn't know it, it wouldn't matter to me."

"But it would to anyone who cared about you."

"That'd only be my team. Would they be dead too? 'Cause if they're still active, whoever messed up my marker would have to be dumb as a crumb. But I don't think I want a marker. I'd rather have a stereo system that played music all the time, just in case I could still hear it."

There was a pause. "You know what?" Groove said. "Forget that. What do you think your human friend would say if she knew what you'd done?"

Anger flashed through Wildrider's circuits – not even Motormaster had tried to use Geri against him like that – but his memory was faster. He could imagine Geri asking him to please stop trashing graveyards in that quiet polite way she had, as if courtesy was all she needed to make a Decepticon even pay attention to her, let alone do as she asked. Though it had worked on him more often than not, perhaps because he was so unused to a human treating him with respect while never groveling or being insincere.

"What the frag does that matter?" He spoke as insolently as he could, determined not to look at all vulnerable in front of a Protectobot. "It's not like she could care – she's dead, and that happened 'cause you interfered." That wasn't something he could forget easily. "And you're still interfering, so get lost. Or if you really want me to stop, get down here and lemme shoot you instead."

"Would you leave these places in peace if your friend asked you to?" Groove persisted.

Wildrider's engine revved in a warning snarl. "You know where you can stick your what-ifs, scootie? If Geri were alive she'd tell me off and if I were a wimp I'd be a Protectobot, but she's not and I'm not. So there."

"…I think it'd take a little more than that to make you a Protectobot," Groove said after a moment. "But there's something you don't know about her."

"What?"

The beam of the headlight swung away as the motorcycle turned. "Come on and I'll show you."

Wildrider didn't move. "Skywarp must've replaced my vanity plates with ones that say 'sucker'. Sneaky glitch."

The headlight flickered red, then white again. "I'm not leading you into a trap. I just want you to stop desecrating these places, even if all the humans in them are dead. And I want to make up for leaving her alone on that ranch."

"Yeah, whatever. And I guess I'll run into Defensor as soon I follow you?"

"Do a radar scan. First Aid's the only one nearby – the rest of my team doesn't even know I'm here. I like being by myself. Besides, there are better ways to deal with things than fighting, and I won't use force against you unless you give me no other choice."

Wildrider thought how different the Protectobot was from him, though as he had explained to Geri, there was a reason for that: opposites annihilated each other. Though Geri had been very different from him as well, and aside from arguing quite frequently they had made a good team. Still, she hadn't been some Autobot out to deactivate him.

"Why didn't you let your team know what you're doing?" he said. Despite his dislike for the Protectobots, he couldn't help feeling a little curious.

The glow of the headlight receded, slowly fading into the darkness. "A gestalt isn't a hive mind. Sometimes we do things our leaders should only learn about after the fact, and sometimes we have to do what's right for us even if it's not right for our brothers." Groove hesitated. "At least, that's what I know about our gestalt. Maybe it's different for 'con teams."

Wildrider said nothing, mostly because that kind of philosophical rambling had never been his strong point. He glanced at the cemetery around him, but there wasn't much left to do in it.

The motorbike was gone, but he could still pick it up on his radar. He shifted gears and rolled forward; even if that was an Autobot trap, at least he would have a little excitement. And he was also curious about what anyone could possibly tell him about Geri. Maybe she had left him a gift to remember her by, like fluffy dice for his rear-view mirror.

"I'm going north on Los Padres to Warburton Park, just in case I lose you," Groove said over the radio. "First Aid's waiting there with--"

"Lose you?" Wildrider accelerated, nearly drove into an open grave but dodged at the last moment and zoomed ahead. "Hah! I could catch you if I was racing backwards!"

"I'll take your word for that. Oh, one more thing. 'Diesel' is spelled i-e, not e-i."

"…Slag."

"_A person who drives a vehicle upon a highway at a speed greater than 100 miles per hour is guilty of an infraction punishable, as follows…" – California Vehicle Code, Division 11, Chapter 7, Article 1, Section 22348 (b)_

"_Wild roads need wild riders." – The Stunticons_

THE END

* * *

**tomorrow4eva **: Yes, Prime knew Streetwise had enough reasons to dislike Wildrider already without the news of the vandalism. I figure the pacifists of the team, Groove and First Aid, have to be balanced out by the more hard-nosed ones like Streetwise and Blades. Glad you enjoyed the chapters!

**Yuki Hikari** : Hope you'll like what you see of the G1 cartoon. The Stunticons didn't get a lot of screen time in the cartoon, but they're fascinating characters with a unique group dynamic, so I wanted my stories to give them the kind of stage they deserve. I'm very pleased that you like them. :)

And yes, the Transformers Wiki is a great source of information about characters and episodes. I especially like the entry on Scrapper and the inconsistencies about his origin(s).

**Taipan Kiryu** : It's interesting, no one took the side of the 'bots even though they do mean well and are in a difficult position – there's no way they can satisfy both Wildrider _and_ Geri's father. Maybe because Wildrider is just too sympathetic a character and we see it all from his point of view.

And you're right, Geri is far too strong-willed and fond of Wildrider to put up with that. I didn't write the reunion between them because I wanted that to be in the readers' imagination, but the two of them get one of the stories I've written for the 28s meme. Those will be going up very soon. Appreciate all your feedback and inspiration for them!

**Fire From Above** : You called it. :) And if Wildrider had known she was alive, he would have insisted on sticking around and seeing her, so the other Stunticons would probably have tracked him down at the hospital. I think friendships between humans and Decepticons are difficult at best, but well-nigh impossible when the 'con is a member of a combiner team. You get one, you tend to get them all.

Right now Wildrider's justifying it because Motormaster specifically ordered him not to befriend "another human" – he never said anything about staying away from Geri. Not that that will cut any ice if Motormaster finds out, of course.

**Enjoying a story** : I don't think it would have made a difference to Prime or Geri's father if they did know the whole story. No matter how protective Wildrider is of her, he's still a terrorist with fewer morals than functioning processors, and he has a much more powerful commander who wouldn't hesitate to kill Geri if he ever caught her with Wildrider. All the good that Wildrider's done wouldn't get rid of those problems.

But you're right, it was wrong of them to lie to him and not to give Geri any say at all in what happened. I'll bet it's this that makes her even more determined to meet him whether anyone disapproves or not.

**TheSpittingAlpaca, Dragon260, Grey Grapevines, meteor prime** : Thanks for your reviews! I love it when I take readers by surprise, and I hope this gave you as happy an ending as possible.

_When one road ends, another begins. Hope to entertain you all again with my next series of Stunticon fics, done for the 28s meme. Thanks for reading!_


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